Revenue is an entirely different graph, where revenue increased in an exponential curve in the 90s, but around the turn of the century has gone to a very slow linear increase, also about 20% since the turn of the century.
Note that US population went up about 15%, I would assume entirely due to immigration, from 282M to 327M.
Annual average CPI from bls.gov shows 172 in 2000 and 255 in 2019, so figure somewhat above 33% inflation since 2000.
So, since the turn of the century, sale quantities are falling about 40% behind population based estimates, whereas revenue is increasing slightly faster than population but vastly slower than inflation.
It would seem casuals and the general public are no longer going to the movies, its the kind of thing you see in extracting maximum revenue from superfans type of thing. Trying and failing to keep up with inflation by appealing more so to an ever shrinking audience of the most motivated fans.
This would fit in with anecdotal "common sense" reports of the product being very formulaic and ever more narrowly targeted.
In the end, markets with shrinking mindshare and shrinking revenue relative to inflation, are usually doomed. Either things will get shaken up and all the trend lines will change or the entrenched legacy players will eventually financialize themselves out of business sooner or later.
I think part of what is going on here, is that the real movie junkies are watching movies at home, whereas the real book junkies still go to the library. So, both figures may be influenced by the most-frequent users, but in different directions.
I read a lot but switched to ebooks almost entirely 2 years ago
Reading a book a week from a major publisher usually costs more than a month from a digital streaming service. Borrowing books requires some planning ahead since much of what's worth reading has a wait list, assuming that it is even available to libraries. Contrast that to print titles. You may be stuck placing something on hold if you are looking for a particular title, but there is usually something worth reading available.
So that's somewhere between 4-20 dollars a month, and netflix spotify/netflix both are about 15 dollars. So some months my kindle will come out cheaper, sometimes more expensive.
But yeah, sometimes they are as expensive as print-book. Which is silly imo.
Also, libraries are used for a lot of things other than checking out books. Austin's library has boardgames available (I see people playing them there), and a lot of music and movie media.
I'm a cheapo, so I'm always looking for ebook deals. Waiting a couple months to buy a new expensive book I'm interested in (for free) is not a problem for me.
It's successor is the Libby app. It's fantastic. If you're not using the Libby app, you are missing out.
I go there to work or to read (sometimes on my kindle) because of how quiet it is.
If you want to build a library and some official tells you the place would be better used for a movie theater, you have a reference number to argue.
Some people are positing with a straight face that libraries are a thing of the past and the ROI is low now that we have amazon. Explaining libraries are useful is actually not trivial, especially as they don’t directly make money.
Slightly off topic, but equating library with “reading” is not in line with today’s libraries, which represent a lot more than a place to borrow old books.