I only recently learned that there is a huge pile of documentation in /usr/share/doc.

1. How on earth is a typical user supposed to find out about that?

2. It seems like much of it is gzipped, and inaccessible with administrative privileges:

   $ gunzip examples/letter.tex.gz 
   gzip: examples/letter.tex: Permission denied
   

   Are users expected to duplicate each item in their home directory just to read it, or is there a less tedious solution?

This arrangement hardly seems conducive to regular browsing. How do normal people read this documentation?