this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 14 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Almost all these books were either headed to the dump or the recycling center.

My wife works at a law firm that contracts with "Books By The Yard", which provides books purely for office aesthetics. For a few hundred bucks you can plaster a bookshelf full of material nobody will ever read, because they're such a commodity.

It's so crazy to see people ingesting this news from the conspiracy-brain perspective of "The AI companies are stealing all the knowledge!" without recognizing the more pressing reality of decade upon decade of publisher overproduction, resulting in a total devaluing of physical media for its academic importance.

Imagine going into hysterics because a warehouse full of shitty airport books went up in smoke, like it's the Library of Alexandra that just burned down.