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I hate to say it as a book lover, but books are losing value for many people. I see a similar thing happening with music. With music you have Spotify, Pandora, iHeart, Songza, and numerous other free and low cost music options. It is is getting harder to justify spending $10 or more for each album when there is so much music available in so many ways that don't involve paying $10 for a single album, and you can subscribe to music services with unlimited music for the cost of one album a month.
With books, especially if you have an ereader, it is hard to keep up with the free ebooks, and low cost ebooks ($.99-$2.99 mostly) and the option to get free ebooks from online libraries, and thousands of public domain classic ebooks. And as the OP says, too many other thing vying for our time and attention.
I almost never spend over $10 for an ebook now. And I have hundreds of ebooks already in my library. While publishers try to live in the past. Walmart and other retailers have cut the legs out from under them with discount pricing on print books, and Amazon lets new authors show their wares for free, and sell at low prices. I honestly believe traditional publishing is all but dead, only they don't know it yet. Maybe 5 years ago they could have stopped the bleeding, or slowed it, by recognizing the new reality. But I think it is too late for them now, and they will be a little corner business, if they survive at all, that serves only a few who insist on hardbacks in their book collections.
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