Books are a vestigial organ. Nobody uses books as their primary mode of accessing information about the world anymore.
What is interesting is that the cultural mores around this vestigial organ have persisted to such a great degree. Harry Potter Books are a psycho-social mechanism of self-construction more than an actual work of fiction. The phenomenon of "I am a bookish person who reads Harry Potter" as a psychological thing that people do is larger and more significant than the actual story of Harry the young wizard. Likewise, the phenomenon of "I am a successful luminary who has written a book" is more important than the actual content of the book itself. Celebrities paying ghostwriters to write books and going to book signings to sign a book for people who will never actually read the book. A perfectly airtight simulacra.
I think I can rewrite this post using simpler language:
"I don't read books, and I assume nobody else does too.
People who read fun stories have ulterior motives besides enjoying the stories. (As opposed to the honest motives of people who enjoy movies or music, or other media)
People who write books have ulterior, egotistical motives to do so.
Celebrities sometimes write memoirs. See, this proves something!
The above points show that books are a "vestigial organ" and a "simulacra."
"
The fact that you have enough reading comprehension to summarize my comment, deconstruct its arguments, and formulate a counterargument puts you in an extremely small minority. You and I spend time around people who read, who have reading comprehension. Of those, a shrinking minority occasionally read actual books.
Most people never, ever, ever read paper or e-reader books. They struggle mightily in school to read the things they are _forced_ to read, and then say "never again" for life when they graduate. This is true even for intelligent people who have "good jobs" with disposable income and time set aside that they could conceivably spend reading paper or e-reader books. Seriously, if half of your friends have read a single paper or e-reader book in the last year, you are in a very very small minority.
Media that people regularly consume: Cable TV, Streaming Services, Instagram and TikTok, Movies, Sports, Reddit/Twitter/the news (CNN, etc), paper or e-reader books. What is your intuition about how large each of these categories is compared to the others? If you say "books" is even 5%, you are off by an order of magnitude.
What I am saying is that this holds true, even for a fandom like Harry Potter, which is ostensibly based around reading a book!
You're talking about midwits or whatever. Millions of very intelligent people still get most of their knowledge from books. Books remain the highest octane fuel.
What is interesting is that the cultural mores around this vestigial organ have persisted to such a great degree. Harry Potter Books are a psycho-social mechanism of self-construction more than an actual work of fiction. The phenomenon of "I am a bookish person who reads Harry Potter" as a psychological thing that people do is larger and more significant than the actual story of Harry the young wizard. Likewise, the phenomenon of "I am a successful luminary who has written a book" is more important than the actual content of the book itself. Celebrities paying ghostwriters to write books and going to book signings to sign a book for people who will never actually read the book. A perfectly airtight simulacra.