As our dystopian culture moves more and more to streaming options, ebooks and digital information, physical community libraries will lessen their collections to accommodate technology. It's time to bring back private libraries.
She's building a literal library in her home 😳 pic.twitter.com/VgQyOitGim
— Financial Dystopia (@financedystop) December 28, 2025
The Midnight Book Club by David Rice exposes how library apps like Hoopla give the appearance of almost unlimited access to digital books, but the financial reality is more like a Communist bread line.
The article's conclusion:
"The daily budget cap system employed by libraries using Hoopla results in a digital checkout system that can be exhausted by a small number of users within hours of the daily reset. The Christian County Library's $40,000 annual budget translates to approximately 44-55 daily checkouts—a number so small that just 10-15 active users can consume the entire day's allocation before most patrons begin their day.
This analysis explains why patrons frequently encounter "daily budget limit reached" messages and why these messages often appear earlier in the day as the month progresses and more patrons become aware of popular new content.
While digital content should theoretically allow unlimited simultaneous access, the commercial model behind Hoopla creates an artificial scarcity that significantly limits the practical value of the library's extensive digital collection."
The Christian County Library has just limited patrons' checkout for Hoopla items from 5 to 3. See below. Rice reports the library's budget for Hoopla is about $40,000 annually. Read his article to see what the numbers add up to.
