Though 4 Euros ($4.50) is less than half what I pay for most books I want on Amazon.
It would be very expensive for me to feed my book-reading habit like that. I couldn't afford it without libraries.
It's nice that you can afford to spend money on books, but we need a solution for everyone else, especially if we agree that books are a good thing for society.
Recently there was that op-ed in Forbes that said we don't need libraries because we have Amazon: https://qz.com/1334123/forbes-deleted-an-op-ed-arguing-that-... -- Was such a disaster that Forbes limped away from it by deleting it.
We who didn't have a problem being quiet and going there to either read quietly or to bring books home, going there for the books, seem to be much more likely to actually visit as adults. Is there any evidence to suggest people who use libraries as playgrounds are more likely to use them as adults? Because if there isn't we are removing one of extremely few quiet places for no gain. I remember going to the library or staying after school to be able to read my Asimov and Douglas Adams, which would have been hard at home. If people who have quiet homes came there to let their children off to play I would be less likely to go there, just like I'm less likely to go there now when that is happening.
The new model may be valid, but maybe we should just close the libraries altogether and start calling them "Community Centers".
