> The problem of low information density isn't new. Most of the "classics" of western literature have the same problem.
I would submit that you may not be tuned into the value in them, if you think that. Maybe it's true of some, but most are just an acquired taste of the same sort as, say, the freer-form varieties of jazz, or classical music. It takes some work and some experience before you get what they're doing, before you understand their rhythms, learn to recognize when they're telling you to pay attention (and to what, which may not be obvious at first), when and how they're simply playing and what about the particular play they're engaging in makes it remarkable and worthwhile, and so on.
There's a sensitivity required for much (not all) of the body of classic literature that most people have to work to develop before they really get it, and lots of allusions that have the chicken/egg problem of requiring you already to be familiar with a lot of literature before they start to land with any frequency—again, same as some genres of music, like classical and jazz again, hip hop especially, others too, but usually not as much as those. Just because you can read doesn't mean you get literature, just like being able to see doesn't mean you get fine art, though in either case you might still enjoy at least some of it, and you might still develop strong opinions about the works you don't enjoy.
Movies and TV are similar. You're not born recognizing good film-making, understanding why it's good, how the way the camera moved in that shot actually contributed meaning rather than just being an artifact of the medium, how that shot was a reference to some DW Griffith movie and what purpose that might have, how that shot is weak and works against the tone or action of the scene in a way that makes it bad, and so on. Most people who watch and enjoy film never bother to develop an actual understanding of it, but that doesn't mean the things that go over their heads are bad.
That's just how all art is, really. Sure there's some posturing and BS mixed in with it all, but you in fact do have to put some serious hours and effort into arts to get the most out of them that you can—even just on a critical or enjoyment or character/intellect/empathy-building level, not even getting into making art—and very probably by the time you've done that a bunch of things that seemed like worthless overrated crap when you started won't seem that way anymore.