I get what you're saying, but later in life I went to university, where I had access to better libraries, for which the quality and quantity of information is (to this day) greater than you can obtain on the internet [1].

Things like arxiv are a step toward that "tap of knowledge on every topic", but the overwhelming feeling I get from most internet content these days (and that includes LLM output) is that it's an inch deep and a mile wide [2]. A good book -- which can usually be found at your local library -- will vastly exceed the quality of what you can find on your own, if only because of intelligent curation.

Maybe I'm just a romantic (or just old), but for me, libraries are still where you do serious research.

[1] yes, I know that many university libraries have a selection of their content on the internet now, but usually this is behind a login, and it certainly isn't comprehensive.

[2] recent example: I've been working through McCullough's "The Great Bridge", and there are frequent occasions when I want to find out more information or see diagrams of what he's describing. The internet is, nearly always, completely useless for this. Tons of content on the Brooklyn Bridge, but it all says the same superficial stuff. Though I will grant that you at least can find some stuff like this now, if you try hard enough:

https://bklyn.newspapers.com/article/brooklyn-eagle-the-brid...