Godyth
Film has mostly gone, true. But do digital cameras not take photographs just like film cameras did?
I sort of get what you're saying, but speaking as a person who counts photography among his creative pursuits, no, they don't. Digital presents a whole different set of challenges than film. I realize I'm being somewhat pedantic (FWIW, the old 220 or 35mm film formats which were popular as consumer cameras don't have much if any of an advantage to their digital counterparts), but there really are some limitations, to the point that many professional photographers (protogs, to use the lingo) who keep a film camera or two around, even if not in formats that most people twenty years ago would expect to buy in a convenience store.
But the analogy somewhat holds true. Just as digital photography offers people a lot in the way of cost savings and convenience, as do digital books. But there's a certain art to printed books that's lost in the digital format. You can't rub the nice heavy bond between your fingers or proudly browse the spines on your bookshelf. You also can't collect signed first editions, which is a hobby I find is becoming more and more rare.
And the analogy continues with it's effect on the industry. Since everybody effectively now has a camera in their pocket, there's a proliferation of slightly off-focus, centered subject, completely blown highlights or mired in shadows photos out there, not to mention the people who tote around huge DSLR's that have never changed a lens in their life and leave the camera in its automatic exposure mode. The equivalence in literature is the number of people who have convinced themselves that there exists some guardian controversy among book publishers and have used this opportunity to foist their genius upon the world without a modicum of attention to editing or style.
So, it is what it is, and I expect that books will settle into the same blurry lines as photography has, where anybody can take pictures with a nice camera, but only those who give the prerequisite attention to form and craft can stand apart. Paper books will live on, though they may become more expensive and specialized than their digital counterparts. That's honestly not what writers should really be worried about, however, because it's the words on the page that we need to build in order to stand out from the crowd.