This is a logical error. The benefit of automobiles is that people move across vast distances. Wrong. People used to move across vast distances before, using

This is a logical error. The benefit of automobiles is that people move across vast distances. Wrong. People used to move across vast distances before, using horses. Yes, automobiles are better and now traveling is easier. But we have no ability to figure out how many people would travel on horses if there wasn't a better alternative. It's even possible, that banning cars could eventually lead to an even better method of transportation (escaping a local minimum kind of a thing). Authors who write books have tools to protect their interests, so they do so. Without these tools perhaps there would be less authors. Or maybe there would be more authors: I think Windows and Photoshop are so popular because they were pirated a lot; returning to the context of books, less and less people read them, but maybe if books (attractive books, not old books in public domain) were free, then the trend would reverse, books would popularize, people would start enjoying deeper entertainment, get smarter, transform the society for the better, and support authors on e.g. Patreon… Or maybe not, I'm just mentioning some nuance.