I think there's a lot of cargo-culting around books being magical in and of themselves, but there is a subtle trap in this line of thinking. The micro-niche as

I think there's a lot of cargo-culting around books being magical in and of themselves, but there is a subtle trap in this line of thinking. The micro-niche aspect of the internet is unrivaled for straightforward, practical information. I won't question that. That said, if you want the detailed thoughts of an expert on some topic, they will by definition be in a book or book-analog online format since no other medium allows for this sort of efficient and unforgiving long-form development of thoughts. Online courses and blog posts tend to refer to books anyway, or to summarize them. Videos can offer information as well but the format itself constrains the amount of information you can cram into the work, and the incentive to editorialize is greater. But in a deeper sense it's not even about the books but the applicability and context of the information that is gleaned regardless of the format. Ten year's worth of HN can be impressive, but it mostly gives you perspective on HN users and which topics interest them to begin with. Just like the School of Athens gave a specific perspective, HN will give you a specific framework from which you may or may not have to escape eventually. To name another example, if you start reading non-popular history books it becomes clear that different experts can have radically different views of the same events. In turn you start to realize that the pop-history books you've read are so distorted as to be almost useless. Similarly, the internet can yield astounding quantities of information, but if they are optimized for views, reinforce an echo chamber, or are repeating ideas as a secondary source, it won't matter. It's seductive to feel this power at our fingertips but the end practical result tends to be the same, since developing thoughts takes effort. More importantly, time remains the true barrier.