My library gives free Libby and PressReader, so it would let me read The New Yorker more comfortably than I can on my laptop of phone.
Same use case here. Wife sits on the couch and reads magazines from the public library on the iPad. She enjoys the form factor.
To each their own. To me it would be more annoying to read something on an ipad vs laptop because I'd have to hold the ipad up or prop it up somehow.