If a person's goal is to be published just to be immortal, it would seem to me that that person does not get the point of writing. For me writing is an outlet; a way for me to express what I am feeling, a way to get emotions out that I can't normally express to people, or a way to get some story down that I thought of. I think that writing just for the sake of writing is great and if a person happens to get published, all the better for them. But I really don't think it makes a difference. Published writing is more easily accessible to the public but that doesn't necessarily make a published work better than something that was unpublished. If someone hears something or reads something and comes away with a thought, an idea or a feeling then that is what writing is all about.