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I imagine you read a lot, so I think your perspective is skewed by what counts as difficult. You are underestimating just how simple RoyalRoad is, and how that simplicity is very useful when you haven't been reading your whole life.
The first issue is that you're competing with TikTok, video games, and twitch streams. I can promise you that there is a gulf between Treasure Island and your average RoyalRoad story in terms of ease of reading.
And the second issue is that, or at least this is my perspective, is that it's fun to read books that are contemporary. I've read Count of Monte Cristo, and in it I clearly saw a lot of inspiration for what the modern WebFic world developed from. In many ways it's a proto webfic. And yet, I would say it's also much worse than modern web novels. Is it better than the average RR slop? Of course, is it as interesting to read as the above average RR stories? I don't think so.
Reading RoyalRoad stories is like eating popcorn. I'm a very fast reader, depending on the book, I can reach up to 400 WPM. I'm obviously an outlier, but the way I reached this is by just reading a lot of slop. Reading is a much a muscle as anything else, and you do develop it as long as you do it. Even if you read slop, you will get better at consuming slop more quickly.
I've started reading translated xianxia slop, then webfics like Worm, and now I've also read "highbrow" authors like Pynchon, and Burroughs. But I don't think I would've enjoyed them anywhere as much if I hadn't developed my ability to consume words on the lowbrow stories first.
Sure, RLS might require the average moid to look up a few words. But basically anything in the past 100 years is easily digestible for a literate adult.
Uh, cool, I guess, but I don't know what the point of this is. It isn't necessary to read faster than average to read something that isn't slop.
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