Anna's Archive is a gift to humanity
The only reason we even have dead-tree libraries at all is because 100 years ago, that was what John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie put forth to whitewash their horrible capitalist behaviors across the USA. And because it was done by those generations' billionaires, public libraries because acceptable.
If public libraries were created in the last 20 years, they would have been banned and felony copyright charges would have been levied. In fact, thats exactly what happened WHEN people tried to create free digital libraries.
I wonder why nobody created a Netflix-like subscription for digital books
The economics aren't there.
Additionally, modern Netflix is a streaming company, and even DVD Netflix was sending the materials directly to your house, which is a differentiator versus the library, whose materials need to be picked up. There's a convenience factor as an incentive to pay. Library streaming exists, but it's awful - very limited library and very limited watches - versus Netflix where once you sub you can watch as much as you want.
The reason I don't subscribe is it takes me a lot longer to finish a book/audiobook than a movie. I just get them from the library/Libby - even if it's a 4 month wait, there are plenty of available books to read while I wait.
There was already one that existed in the web 2.0 era. Founded in 2012, raised a $3M seed from Founders Fund and a $14M A. Completely failed though and was acquihired by Google to have the founders lead Google Play Books.
Amazon now has Kindle Unlimited but I think it's mostly romance slop and self-published books. Seems like publishing rightsholders were just too inflexible to let the business model take off.
Usually funded by universities and foundations anyway because there's no real commercial market.