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If mass-market paperbacks don't matter ... then why do publishers print and sell so many of them? In many case, paperbacks (MM or TP) are the only form a book is released in.
I'd venture a guess that in terms of net profit over the lifetime of a pbook, the people who pay full price for hardcovers are actually in the minority. People who buy discounted hardcovers, people who buy trade paperbacks, people who buy mass market paperbacks, almost certainly bring in more profit, overall, than buyers of full-price hardcovers; the big advantage of HC sales is that they front-load the income, which can be very, very useful if you're a business with ten failed books to pay for and printing bills to meet. I'm just talking about direct sales here, no used books, etc., by the way.
Or look at it on a person-by-person basis: the people who line up to buy some politician's or celebrity's tell-all buy, what, a book every few months? If that? I buy that per week. If you're a business, who matters more to you: the person who spends $25 every 2 months, or the person who spends $10 every week ($80 every 2 months)?
Publishers without customers would be in a lot worse shape than customers without publishers, by the way.
And as for your "art" ... art is art. Do art for art's own sake, or do commercial work for its own sake, but don't expect other people to treat one like the other just because you say so. If people aren't paying you what you think you should get paid for your "art", then you have a problem with confusing the two.
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