[BrenBarn]

> It's not that it's too much floor space, it's that it costs too much for the benefit it provides.

It costs way less than Facebook or a server farm full of GPT instances and provides more benefit and less harm. Our society has really warped the notion of what appropriate costs and benefits are.

[starspangled]

You have a really warped notion of appropriate public service delivery if you think the only options are public libraries or "Facebook" or a server farm full of GPT instances. But I don't think your comment was in good faith, perhaps because you are incapable of actually addressing what I wrote.

[BrenBarn]

I didn't say those were the only options.

What you wrote is that a library "costs too much for the benefit it provides". What I'm saying is that there are many other things we currently pay more for that provide even less benefit, so in relative terms libraries are quite far down the list of expenses to be worried about.

[starspangled]

You certainly implied they were the only two options, and you did not say anything remotely suggesting you were talking about other things that are more wasteful! You're just making all that up now.

Anyway the topic is libraries. I did not say that no other things should be examined for their value for money, I was just talking about libraries. And the government sure should make good spending decisions on everything they spend money on! What kind of suggestion is that??