I feel you, I think I'm just weirdly worried about cracking the spine, and so I never have. I'm reading Count of Monte Cristo now and am almost done, paperback, and even at page 1000, no crack.

That's not like an elitist thing, that's like, I'm just very opposed to cracking a spine thing

It might be also that I realized that when I touched and turned pages from the side, there's always yellowing or fraying, so I hold and turn pages from the top or bottom.