also libraries allow you to try out tons of books, i can't imagine without libraries how people would even decide what to purchase, simply going in blind based on reviews like movies except way more expensive and with a much larger time commitment which means people would be even more selective
but then publishers don't actually care about that, they want to turn digital books into a streaming model, where all works are just "content", a featureless sludge to be pumped into the machine to drive subscriptions :\