Our ability to access and read books has actually been definitely essential to our ability to understand the world around us.
It is essential to remember that, although a lot of the best modern books of all time tend to be regarded as ground-breaking works of fiction, for the majority of humanity's literary history, we did not compose much fiction at all. Many stories would have been sung throughout the great bulk of history, simply since the vast majority of individuals could not read, indicating that most books were specialised things meant for those few who might comprehend them. After a brief boom throughout the classical era of antiquity, the amount of literate people dropped significantly throughout the Middle Ages. Books became unusual treasures, with monks fastidiously copying out the surviving traditional texts by hand so as to maintain them, as they were some of the only members of the population who were able to read or write. They were the expert keepers of understanding like biology and religion that we all have access to in the modern-day world.
With such a rich history of ideas, occasions, and stories right at our fingertips, it's often easy to forget how extremely fortunate we are to have the likes of the founder of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones or the CEO of the asset manager with a stake in Amazon books supporting access to a big percentage of all the books that have ever been written (or the good ones at the very least). The best books of all time can quickly change the way that you take a look at the world, which has actually held true throughout all of history as well. The modern-day world is built on understanding that has been passed down through books, whether that is ideology, science, or history, and human civilisation would not be anywhere near as advanced as it is today if it had actually not been for the books that changed minds throughout the ages.
It can be hard to picture what the world would resemble today if the vast majority of people were unable to read, but for the huge majority of history the large bulk of people could not, and nor were books available even if they could. It was the development of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that changed that, making books a lot more available. Of course, it was still only truly the wealthiest and well-educated that could read or write, but it allowed an entire host of developments in science, art, and thinking to be spread throughout great distances. Consider what would have taken place if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have actually been distributed across the globe. Human civilisation rests upon a structure of books, and we are fortunate to be able to merely log onto a website like the one backed by the co-founder of the impact investor with a stake in World of Books, and easily access the totality of human understanding.