[asdff]

And on top of that they aren't realizing any of the gain of the modern technology here. They buy a $1000 laptop, with $100 a month internet plan, to go watch a 15 minute youtube video with 4 minutes of discrete ads and 4 minutes of sponsor product mentions cut into the actual video, all to gleam a fraction of the understanding that a single page of whatever someone in their position a few decades ago would have checked out for free from the library. Whats all of this effort and technology even for then? The only people who eek out a gain here are the advertisers who now have put themselves front and center of what used to be an entirely unmonetized trip to the library, a known good source of truth.

[commandlinefan]

> would have checked from the library

Well, local libraries don't really have that much in the way of good academic texts - you have to have access to a university library, or be willing to fork over $60 of your own for a print copy, for that. But I get what you mean.

[asdff]

You aren't getting anything from a youtube video thats in academic texts either. But you can certainly get academic textbooks from library systems. Are they on the shelf at your local library branch? Maybe not. Can you order it from the library system for free and get it sent to that branch in a few days? Sure. I just looked online at what one of the seminal works for a field I don't understand but might be generally useful to homeowners or people seeking to upskill: carpentry. I found the title "Building Construction Illustrated" recommended a few times. My library system has just about every edition of this book published over the decades, in good supply, even in ebook form. This is what I mean with how the library system can easily serve you very high quality information on a variety of topics.