Libraries could be much better if they stop focusing on the NYT best sellers list. They are starting to come around on indie books (and local community engagement), but it takes time. And, given how a libraries content budget works, a successful library book can suck out all of the budget. This is especially true if it is a book from a big 5 publisher with a high price tag.
Libraries and librarians tend to be more generalists, while niche bookstores and their employers are more focused. If I walk into a bookstore specializing in X then I can be pretty sure that the person working there knows a lot about the subtle differences in all the books about X. The same isn't necessarily true about libraries.
In my experience the books I wanted to read we're often already on loan to someone and I would have to wait for them to be returned or for them to get the book from another branch. It was particularly bad with series.
I was pretty excited by the fact that I could buy my own books when I got my first job. I still miss Borders.
I don't read a lot of stuff, so Amazon makes a lot more sense.
I'm just outside of the city limits, so a library card would cost me $130 / year. I don't spend much more than that on books plus Amazon ships it to me, so it's less expensive in the end.
In middle and high school, I lived just outside the curiously squiggly border of the nearest library, and they didn't offer a card at any price. I don't think I'm alone in that. Amazon would have been amazing.
I don't rent books. If they are good enough to read once I want to own the book and be able to refer back to it occasionally.
The three books I am deeply into right now are all a thousand pages and I have been reading two of them for around four months now, and just started the third. Libraries tend to get annoyed when you keep a book for over six months.
That said, I rarely visited used book stores anyways because they usually don't have the books I am looking for.
I mourn the decrease in readers in general. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/19/slightly-few...
My problem with public libraries was always the miserable scifi section. I never understood that. Even the littlest bookstores had a bigger scifi section than the library. B+N had racks and racks of scifi.