I feel like the decline of paper books — and their reduction to the level of “what did the author mean?” — isn’t just a result of the overwhelming amount of information around us, but also the result of a changing economic model behind content.
Long before AI summaries existed, Russian-speaking readers were already discussing how American nonfiction books tended to be one page of useful insights wrapped in ten pages of filler — storytelling padded with anecdotes. And if my goal as a reader is to enjoy those anecdotes… well, a book is going to lose to a more vivid TikTok. If my goal is to gain new meaning… a book will still lose to a more compressed TikTok.
As a result, anyone who wants to earn money from content and keep providing value must be able to say things briefly. A book used to be the cheapest way to monetize your ideas — and it’s much easier to sell a 300-page book for $20 than a 100-page one, let alone a 10-page one. So people poured in 290 pages of fluff to stretch it out.
Now cheaper ways of creating and distributing content exist, and audiences have learned to pay for value, not for volume. And the winner today is the person who can produce 30 one-page ideas in a month, all on different topics — not the one who can stretch 300 pages out of a single idea by circling around it from every possible angle.
It’s important to note that all of the above applies to nonfiction and “useful literature.”
But if you asked Leo Tolstoy, “What did you want to say with War and Peace?” he would reply: “If I could have said what I wanted to say more briefly, I would have.” Because, allegedly, that conversation really happened once. After saying that, eyewitnesses claim, Tolstoy tossed a match behind him onto a gasoline-soaked car and walked away without looking back at the explosion.
Fiction, on the other hand, isn’t just something you read for entertainment; it teaches you to connect with the collective unconscious. Pick up The Night in Lisbon and you’ll be shocked by how closely it mirrors the experiences of modern migrants. Read The Overcoat and you’ll once again see your own fears reflected in the suffering of Akaky Akakievich.
In short: books may no longer be the best way to get information or entertainment — but they remain the best way to look into someone else’s soul.