A few points for people: 1. some books are out of print. 2. some books CANNOT return to print. 3. all books prior to the 21st century are products of human minds. 4. copyright extends over the vast majority of printed material due to acceleration of literacy and printing access. 5. not all people value all books equally. 6. most books have a degree of historical interest (even cookbooks, which can say a lot about the economic health of a region when it is printes. culture is also clearly encoded in them). 7. many books are already lost, and historians are the ones who most voice the harms. 8. when a book is absorbed into the machine, it may remain vaugely accessible, but only on the good grace of the ones who pilfered it. 9. if no existant copies remain, then the price for access becomes effectively infinite. 10. removal of books denies human agency over access to information. 11. costs will follow a steepening curve much as ram did.

first they came for cookbooks, but i was no chef so i said nothing. second they came for handicraft, but i do not toil with fabrics or glue. next they came for homesteading, but i loathe the outdoors life. after, they came for biography, memoirs, and letters, but i am bored by the dead. finally, they came for my own little little interest, but nobody was left who appreciated books, so they too were ripped to shreds.