I'm from Spain and there is no B&N here, but I have been surprised by the success of the bookstore sector in general. In the 2010s, just when ebooks became pop

I'm from Spain and there is no B&N here, but I have been surprised by the success of the bookstore sector in general. In the 2010s, just when ebooks became popular, a lot of bookstores opened in my city and others I know, both of the large chain and small independent variety. My thought was "are they crazy or what? Physical books are obviously a declining business, most people will just read ebooks. Most of these stores are doomed to close, as bookstores will become something very niche". Boy, was I wrong... the reality, while I don't have sales figures and just speak as a layman, is that they didn't close, but rather the opposite: even more of then opened during the rest of the decade and they generally seem rather lively. Have ebooks not caught on after all, or are people reading much more so that there is market for both? I don't know. By the way, on a more personal note, ebooks made me almost stop reading for a long time. I was an avid reader until ebook readers appeared. Then I started to read in ebook form, because physical books take a lot of space, and they already occupied a lot of room at home (and the space is not just for me, I lived with my wife, and now also my son!). With this, I dropped from reading a lot to like 4 or 5 books a year, then 2, then 1 or even 0. I made myself believe that this was due to lack of time (work, not being single anymore, etc.) which was only a half truth. The other half of the truth, as shallow as it is, is that ebooks don't get me hooked as physical books do, even if the content is the same. I'm not proud of it, it's silly because the real value of a book should be in what it says, not in the physical materials, but it's how I work. I tried to change it for some years but I failed. So I came to accept it. Now I buy physical books again and even though I don't read as much as when I was younger (work+parenting takes a huge amount of time), reading is again one of the main things I do with the free time I do have, and I at least read 1-2 books a month.