> on American-dominated forums people often view public libraries nowadays as a place for the smelly homeless to hang out, look at porn, and possibly shoot up.
I think this says far more about your specific forum bubbles than anything else, to be honest.
At worst I see a perception that libraries are for children.
If you do a DDG search site:news.ycombinator.com "libraries" "homeless", you find some such discussions from this very site. But as I said, you can also find this across the internet when forums are dominated by Americans and it’s certainly not limited to obscure and dodgy venues.
I suppose it is the big-city Americans who are complaining about the social problems. But it’s also common to see from small-town Americans that opening hours at their local library have been slashed, which also speaks to declining support for them.
I think this says far more about your specific forum bubbles than anything else, to be honest.
At worst I see a perception that libraries are for children.