The number of books in the world is monotonically increasing.
The number of hours a person has available in their life to enjoy reading books is constant, or at least capped pretty close to where it's at now.
There are already too many books for anyone to read everything that might interest them in their lifetime.
So what's the use of new fiction books? Haven't enough already been written to serve everyone's needs? I agree that we need fewer fiction authors and the market is showing that with their low compensation.
Also true for music, film, games and massively amplified by digital storage and distribution. I really don't care about the price of a book as the increasingly astronomical cost to me as I age is the time to read it.
I don't understand why you're being down-voted. I mean I want to scream "NO!" to what you said, but against my will (I love books) I have to concur. Same as in all other branches of the entertainment industry too much crap is being produced which decreases the SNR making it harder to find the good stuff.
The number of hours a person has available in their life to enjoy reading books is constant, or at least capped pretty close to where it's at now.
There are already too many books for anyone to read everything that might interest them in their lifetime.
So what's the use of new fiction books? Haven't enough already been written to serve everyone's needs? I agree that we need fewer fiction authors and the market is showing that with their low compensation.