If you think the “primary” purposes of fiction are entertainment and character development, your view is far too undeveloped and myopic to put you in a position to make the sorts of pronouncements in your post. You have a lot to learn. The “character driven” stuff is good but it is a slice of one kind of fiction. You don’t have to like it, but please don’t judge it by this incorrect thinking.

You think literatures primary purpose is to entertain? I disagree entirely.

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Many works of literature are absolutely not there to do something as paltry as "to entertain". You having "fun" reading The Color Purple or The Bluest Eye?

> I think the Golden Age began with Jules Vernes era of Sci Fi.

You don't get to redefine the genre of science fiction all by yourself. It's generally accepted that the Golden Age of science fiction began in July 1939, when John W Campbell became editor of 'Astounding Stories'.

There are some sci-fi that are written as novels, but there are some that are written as "alternate future". Much like Black Mirror they imagine a particular technology or event, and attempt to extrapolate what would happen to society based on that. When telling a horror/dystopian story, short-form works fine as there are any number of ways things can go wrong. When telling a hopeful story, as many of the alternate future works try to be, more time has to be spent on how the pitfalls of dystopia were avoided, the struggles and horrors overcame, etc. I think of Foundation as a parallel to the alternate history books, where they imagine something like, "What if Napoleon never invaded Russia?" and extrapolate from there. Such a story can't be told over one person's lifetime in any meaningful way, the effects are too far-reaching. I don't think anyone who is truly honest with themselves will disagree that portions of Foundation are boring. But Foundation isn't remarkable for the pacing or prose, but for the ideas it introduces and the scope of it's narrative. Comparing to Jules Verne or H.G. Wells is fairly appropriate, as they all were enthralled by the possibilities of human ingenuity and dazzled by the brightness of the future they saw. It's true the older writers wrote better stories, but that doesn't take away from the ambition Asimov had to try to share his vision entire. Doubtless if Wells had written further novels to explore how humans became the Eloi and Morlocks as well as what happened to the nations of his day, or even what else was happening elsewhere in that future time, portions of that would have dragged a bit as well.

How on Earth can you pretend to be "a writer" and somehow also not know that your "definition" of fiction is staggeringly limited and ignorant?

The purpose of fiction can be for a lot of things beyond just entertainment especially how you view it. Plenty of my favourite works are ones I wouldn't even call entertaining myself but which I appreciate their thematic elements or commentary that they provide. Coincidentally you mention Verne and when contrasted with Wells you find that even back then, when it was known as scientific romance before sci fi became an established genre, you could see differences in story telling and their emphasis on entertainment or making some sort of moral commentary. If you continue to read sci fi you may find a work that you didn't necessarily enjoy reading but which the themes or elements alone will strike an accord with you.

My translation of Verne's work like 20k made for a more fun read than Foundation, certainly, but I still prefer Asimov simply because the post-war world is an era I'm more familiar with so have a better appreciation for the elements and issues he explores beyond Foundation, more so with I, Robot, and the context to which they were written compared than the stuff from the 19th century.

And, while you have an appreciation for Verne that's shared with a lot of other readers, the Golden Age as a moniker is generally a well established period to be from the late 1930s to the mid century where there was an explosion of authors so you can rightly praise Verne but sci fi readers wouldn't generally acknowledge the mid 19th century to be a golden age, let alone The Golden Age, because, as mentioned, sci fi wasn't even an established or recognised genre at that point and beyond big names like Verne and Wells you don't see a profusion of writers expanding the genre to the degree you see in from the late 30s.