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Could it also be that in the early days of ebooks heavy readers just bought ebooks from Amazon on their Kindles and from Apple on their iPads? Now, with the maturing of the ebook readership/market, such voracious readers are better informed on the wider availability of free and legal ebooks from sites such as Gutenberg and MobileRead, as well as illegal books from other sites, and have reduced ebook purchases? Other factors include wider adoption of Calibre and other format conversion tools and associated DRM removal mechanisms. As Ken says, self-publishing and cheap/free ebooks is probably a factor too. Plus library/overdrive ebook lending.
An analogy would be that centuries ago, in the early days of print books there were no second hand book shops, so all books had to be purchased new. Nowadays there is a glut of second hand paper books, particularly as some readers dump their physical books for ebooks, and I am seeing prices in used bookstores fall to the point where I have had my donations to such stores declined for lack of space. Since ebook files never wear out and publically available collections are increasing in number and size, the only reason to buy them is to obtain the very latest publication.
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