[Ukv]

For fictional/narrative content, sure; reading the Cliff notes version is missing out on the full experience.

But for a lot of non-fiction content, I think it's perfectly legitimate and common to have some specific piece of information you're looking to extract, or want a rundown of key highlights.

For both, I'd say it could also help in choosing which content to read. Books already typically have a form of summary on the back. If you're researching something, you're going to have to determine which articles are relevant before reading every article top to bottom - and a summary seems helpful for that.