Was the alleged death of libraries a good thing for academic publishing?

Yes, it was terrible when access to information was facilitated by professionals who had a professional belief in providing access to everything for free, and in protecting the identities of people who used them. Better now when what you read can be tracked in realtime. Or changed while you read it. Or deleted, along with all references to it.

edit: the biggest inroads against the academic publishing cartel have been when institutions and their libraries refused to pay.