The good news—such as it is—is that the Web never really became what we assumed it surely would in its early days.

If it was never really the case that you’d be better off for serious or improving reading having only the Web versus only access to a decent library, then we haven’t lost something so precious.

I mean, the most valuable site on the Web is probably a book & research paper piracy website. That’s its crowning achievement. Faster interlibrary loan, basically, but illegal.