These days people do not even need to buy too many books. So much content is on the internet virtually for free because of the advertising and sponsors of videos etc.
It all comes down now, to willpower. There are a lot of distractions online. Filled to the brim with entertainment, surrounded my consumer targeted advertising.
Same with discipline on Hive. I have dozens of people tell me that they do not have the time to write and engage on Hive... but they watch a lot of series than me... they play a lot more PC games than me... etc etc.
So I have to choose to either read this post and write this comment... or watch Youtube shorts and Netflix...