>That said, I find it odd that people assume that reading a book is always higher quality than reading the internet etc. - many books are pretty low quality.

That's a weird take. The internet has basically no barriers. Book publishing, with all of its many flaws, does. Anyone can technically self publish a book, but the odds that you'll find someone on the subway reading it are small. So odds are the book you see people reading on transit is on average better than an internet content.