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It is the same as always. People want free stuff. They don't care how or why stuff should be given them for free...just that they want pretty much everything....for free.
There is a reason ebooks are given term limits that physical books don't have. eBooks never deteriorate. ebooks take up no space....not even from a data perspective...book files are tiny. You only need one tiny file per book. You literally could have every book ever created...on a thumb drive.
Libraries already manage which books they keep depending on reader demand. They might buy 50 or 100 copies of a new Harry Potter book, but after the initial hoopla, they won't keep them all. Even though they have already paid for them and get next to nothing for selling them. They get rid of them for the shelf space.
Remember encyclopedias? Many middle class and above families owned a set. Now you put the encyclopedia online and EVERYONE can read with no need for books. But how are we to fund the creation and maintenance of encyclopedias? Basically - we don't.
Publishers wouldn't have a prayer of staying in business if libraries did to them what the internet has done to the encyclopedia market. Each library buying one copy of a book and letting any number of people to read it at the same time, in perpetuity...would be the end of commercial publishing.
But...at least you'd get your freebie....so there's that
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