To what end?

For its own sake? Well then it's a hobby and such people definitely still exist. I've known some very well-informed gig economy workers, e.g.

To better understand politics / get political? Americans are deeply propagandized and can barely even begin to understand the basics because of the funnel towards partisanship. Even the supposed independents think in partisan terms. This prevents a deeper dive; getting into politics means the political discourse is set by the media and politicians, not you.

As a form of entertainment? Well there's a saturation of that in non-intellectual form already. Enough for you to entertain yourself for literal decades without actually learning anything and you won't even notice.

To improve your job prospects? Well that continues to depend on credentials since a big chunk of on-the-job training has been outsourced to educational institutions, the financial and mental burden (and risk) placed on the worker. There is room for self-teaching and some people try and some of them succeed, but the more direct path is a credential of some kind. It's also inherently limited since it's about a trade.

Because you like to read / have a reading culture? Well there's an absolute glut of fiction to read and people do, but this only makes you aware of themes and context and how to write well. Deeper understanding requires non-fiction, which is generally led by that same political partisanship of American "politics", i.e. liberalism. You'll read some crap by some famous journalists with elite credentials because that's still what society values. You don't even have to particularly appreciate those credentials: you read what you're aware of and you're made aware of things by a corporate media that worships certain people with certain esteem.

And this is before we get to the fact that just doing normal living things like working, sleeping, commuting, eating, taking care of dependents, and doing chores/errands takes for fucking ever. It's also amplified by the breakdown of community relationships, what leftists call atomization. More and more, people relate to one another through media platforms rather than face-to-face among their neighbors. They essentially fend for themselves directly in a corporate media network rather than self-driven / discussion-driven pursuits.

tl;dr: I think it's mostly corporate media propaganda, particularly the most powerful element of propaganda: dictating the subject of discussion and the direction of conversation.