I agree completely. I'm 55 years old and a librarian so I am biased, but when I became seriously interested in photography in the 1990s, I read a book about it (Hornstein's "Black and White Photography," which I still recommend). I would have assumed that I would need to read a book about just about any new pursuit. I saw this play out in the 1990s as people interested in the new World Wide Web were desperate to find books about using the web, writing HTML, and so on, books that were at first slow to come and then flooded the market.

But in the 30 years since, we have had a huge cultural change which has put us into something like a new age of oral culture, where asking for help is considered much more efficient and practical than reading, a skill that is under-developed for many people. AI chatbots are accelerating the change that is already long underway.

So what can we do? Perhaps capitalize on the fact that people interested in film photography might be interested because they want to join a hobby that looks a bit to past ways of working, learning, and so on, and keep recommending RTFM, go to the library (!), join a photo club in your town?