I've happily never met a person in real life who both views books as a means to an end like this AND expects them to just dump understanding into their memories

I've happily never met a person in real life who both views books as a means to an end like this AND expects them to just dump understanding into their memories like installing an app. This is bizarre, mistaking both what a book should "do" and why you want to read it in the first place. I don't know where this idea comes from, but as far as I can tell it's specific to a niche of software engineers. Fortunately, they are far outnumbered by people who love books, buy them, read them, share them, put them on bookshelves, and would generally think this article is profoundly silly.