You're confusing the outer manifestations of a sick mass market distribution chain with an inferred cause ("people don't read for pleasure as much as they used to"). We're actually living through the golden age of reading right now -- HN is symptomatic of this; can you imagine HN existing in the pre-web or pre-usenet era? -- but there's a lot more noise in the system, and the existing distribution networks are crumbling in the face of competition (just as with the record and movie businesses before them).
Borders and B&N aren't healthy businesses. And as for the mass market paperback distribution ecosystem, it nearly collapsed completely back in late 2008. But that doesn't mean there's no demand for the product; all it means is that some intermediate stages in the supply chain are borked. (And no, Amazon is not the answer -- at least, not from the writers or publishers point of view. Shudder.)
Of course F&SF and Asimov's are showing declining newsstand circulation. What's interesting is that they're both on the rise in ebook editions ... and nobody's talking about http://www.tor.com/ and their fiction-publishing habits (which, ahem, pay rather more than the traditional monthlies, suggesting that there's money in the vertical integration/social network model they're pursuing).
Borders and B&N aren't healthy businesses. And as for the mass market paperback distribution ecosystem, it nearly collapsed completely back in late 2008. But that doesn't mean there's no demand for the product; all it means is that some intermediate stages in the supply chain are borked. (And no, Amazon is not the answer -- at least, not from the writers or publishers point of view. Shudder.)
Of course F&SF and Asimov's are showing declining newsstand circulation. What's interesting is that they're both on the rise in ebook editions ... and nobody's talking about http://www.tor.com/ and their fiction-publishing habits (which, ahem, pay rather more than the traditional monthlies, suggesting that there's money in the vertical integration/social network model they're pursuing).