I agree with most of your points but not this one. The proliferation of audio books and text-to-speech (TTS) has made reading books easier than ever. Particularly TTS in my case; I can read an eBook visually for a few hours, then switch to TTS for a while to give my eyes a break, and in this way easily marathon books. Once you are accustomed to TTS you can turn the speed up very fast. I tune the speed on the fly to compensate for mental fatigue to maintain a consistent level of comprehension; when I'm 'in the groove' I can comfortably set TTS to around 750wpm. I can read visually faster than that, but only in a 'sprint', not with endurance. (I find that for finishing a book quick, it's better to be a tortoise than a hare.)
I read nonfiction and fiction like this. Math heavy texts aren't well suited for it, nor books with many charts and tables, but except for a few cases like that it's very adaptable. Modern TTS even handles weird names in fantasy novels surprisingly well.
I think people feel subconsciously guilty that they do not read more. It is thus easier to dismiss books than to acknowledge the fact that most attention spans have been reduced the the granularity of a comment thread. We are all victims to this. Reading a book takes more effort than it used to.
I fear that most people have already read the last book they will complete in their lifetime (not that completing a book is necessary in deriving value from it).