I never understood the benefit of public museums, especially in the internet age.
If you want to look at some artifacts without touching it, you could google it and see it.
Also in public museums a lot of artifacts get damaged due to visitors behaviors.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep the old artifacts at storage facility and release a high quality pictures of it instead of putting it in a museum?
Is there is a benefit for public museums?
Um, what’s the point of sex, when you have porn? What’s the point of concerts, when you have recorded music?
Ok, sorry that was snarky.
Recordings and pictures are important, but they are not the real thing. Public museums let people see, with their own eyes, art, in person. Is it essential? I don’t know. But it is a public good