All the libraries I’ve been to recently are very well set up for discoverability. Especially the kids section. There are hundreds of books on display with some indication of what it’s like and themed sections and all kinds of stuff
At 9, I didn’t need to go to a library—we just had bunch of books at home. Books are cheap, especially second hand. Some of our books were in fact from a library (my mom went, but I never did), so those would rotate.
I suppose the fact that books were physical and I did not have something like TikTok on my phone when I was 9 helped me read whatever was lying around.
As adult I used Kindle for a while but got back to sourcing physical books, even though I have no permanent place and books are difficult to travel with.
You know what isn't cheap in the 2020s? Space.
My grandparents had a full-ass room just for books. I can't even fit my modest blu-ray collection in my apartment, they sit in storage along with my DVDs and physical books.
I've got a Kindle and Calibre with hundreds of books and they don't take any space.
I'm still trying to get my first proper apartment instead of renting =) And know I make more in a year than both of them combined in 2-3 years.
Another factor is that web fictions are targeted at people that just want to read for a short moment, so you're basically only gonna read for 5-10 minutes before the chapter is over and you're done until the next publication.
IMHO the biggest danger to the medium (written fiction) are LLMs. Since they've become well known, the amount of content has skyrocketed and most of it is without any point. No coherent story that develops with characters growing over the months/years you're following them.
Agreed, LLMs are an issue and will probably reduce the amount of written content published in the open (or at all).