Have you looked at public librarian salaries lately? A senior-- senior, mind you-- librarian at the Colorado Springs Library District is being offered $25/hr. I don't recall for certain by now, but I'm pretty sure I made more than that my very first year out of school and I'm practically decrepit by this site's standards.

For contrast, a cop makes 2-3 times that much per hour for directing traffic.

How many Netflix subscriptions could we subsidize if they were just replaced with a sign? /s

Libraries in the US serve an enormous homeless population. "Subsidizing internet for low income people" is easy to say but does not address the practicalities of providing internet to the homeless, for instance.

Or we could take the intelligent route and use taxes to pay for both.

Librarians do much more than look for and put books on shelves.

I wonder how many people saying, "We don't need libraries and librarians" don't get this. Probably all of them. Maybe if they were to shadow a librarian for a couple days, they'd be on the same page.

Hell, all I had to do was overhear a few conversations between librarians and customers to dispel the misplaced idea I had that librarians were an archaic form of Google's search product.

It's embarrassing to admit that, but it's the truth.