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Not understanding what a particular sub genre is, in particular Urban Fantasy which is fairly well defined, in a day and age where the majority of us have neigh unlimited access to the internet is on the person not the sub genre. And let’s please put aside the counters of there are people without smartphones and good internet, smartphones have become the defacto mobile phone you have to go out of your way for a dumb phone. As to internet even back in the 1400 baud modem days looking up words wasn’t particularly difficult and most of those afflicted with sub genres as a concern are going to have access to far faster connections be it on a phone or computer.
Having 6 billion sub genres would also not hinder the general public for the simple fact that they don’t ever need to interact with those sub genres only those seeking out books that would fit in the sub genre and those trying to sell a book that fits would actually need to. It’s not like those who want more sub genres are insisting that physical stores be broken down to represent them (though I know BN did at one point have cozy mystery within mystery), so knowledge of the large umbrella terms of fantasy or science fiction would still expose those browsing shelves in a physical store to the same books. Meanwhile Digital stores don’t suffer the same limitation as physical, a single book can be in however many sub genres it needs to be.
I will say that the Amazon example is one I’d think is useless because at that point you’re splitting hairs to try and make a difference. But grimdark vs noblebright have clear differences.
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