Actually it doesn't. For example you can read news papers without ads :-) at the Sunnyvale library, the Wall Street Journal, the NY Times, the Washington Post,

Actually it doesn't. For example you can read news papers without ads :-) at the Sunnyvale library, the Wall Street Journal, the NY Times, the Washington Post, Economist, Etc. And many periodicals. All without sacrificing your privacy or trying to subvert some paywall. You can read texts on pretty much any subject that were not only written by someone who took time to write it, but were edited and often fact checked by a third party (publisher). You can read classic stories, and new stories, in all sorts of genres. You can socialize at the library, ours has a couple of meeting rooms you can reserve as long as you aren't trying to sell something. Some libraries have a coffee shop in them which is pretty cool. Oh, and you can surf the web if you want but there isn't anything on the Internet that you can't get at the library and the quality of the interaction at the library is always better.