You seem pretty angry and are arguing from an interpretation of the OP's post that I personally don't think really matches either the tone or the content of tha

You seem pretty angry and are arguing from an interpretation of the OP's post that I personally don't think really matches either the tone or the content of that post. You also seem to forget that in many countries that support a strong book market, there has never been any requirement to buy books for a long time before the internet got going, due to the network of public libraries. I have been using the interlibrary loans scheme in the UK since I was 10 to order pretty much any books I wanted to read. Yet I still buy a lot of books. Which I then often give away to people and buy again. Given that everyone in the UK who reads knows that they never need to pay for books beyond the cost of a library card, why do they buy so many books?