The services they cannot afford?
https://apnews.com/article/libraries-ebooks-publishers-expen... ("Libraries struggle to afford the demand for e-books and seek new state laws in fight with publishers")
Consider the title above in the context of this post. It is libraries against publishers.
That may be but it exists today for the most part. And librarians at research libraries were grumbling at licensing costs for digital a couple decades ago. Not they were happy with physical subscriptions either.