I'm in the opposite boat. Growing up, I mostly had paperbacks, and when I encountered hardcover, I just couldn't fathom why someone would pay so much more for something so obviously inferior. They're a bigger pain to hold. Not convenient to put in a backpack. Take up way more space on the bookshelf. Etc.
That said, I usually just stick to my kindle.
They are big, and bulky. They don't fit into a backpack. And you can't simply hold them in one hand and read, anywhere you sit. Like a bench in a garden. You need a space dedicated to reading them.
In terms of utility, hardcovers are strictly worse.
https://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-Lord-Rings-Deluxe-Pocket/dp/05...
The only hard bound books I’ve ever purchased that wouldn’t fit in a backpack were intentionally oversized “coffee table” books.
Sure - if I have a nice chair to sit on in the evening, with good lighting, and can rest it on something, they're quite nice. But the bulk of my reading is either outside of home (so they need to fit in my bag nicely) in an uncomfortable chair, or while lying down so I need to hold the book up. Weight/size really matters here.
When I was a kid I asked around, and in those days the reasons I was given were:
1. They're durable - less likely to fall apart - and may last generations.
2. The font is bigger.
Later in my teenage years, I would be spending inordinate time in the bathroom every evening, with a tub of Vaseline. That's right, I was able to solve a lubricated, optimized Rubik's Cube in 63 seconds!
Audiobook sales continue to grow strongly every year, where as ebooks have been flat or declining in recent years.
Once I'm done borrowing an audiobook from the library through Libby or Hoopla, I might buy a physical book if I liked it enough. I usually don't foresee myself listening to the book again.
In cases where I have trouble getting a book from the library, it's often on Spotify. An Audible subscription would be mostly redundant.
One of the most well-read person I know recently revealed to me that the hundreds of books he read over past few years were actually mostly audiobooks - because it turns out that most of his dayjob is physical, low-cognitive-demand kind, and pairs perfectly with audiobooks, basically keeping his brain engaged while his muscles do the repetitive work.
If you buy a lot of your books second-hand and live in an expensive part of the world (as I do) then you will likely find that the cost of the books is less than the cost of the larger house you need to fit them in. So you want physically smaller editions of the books if possible.
There are exceptions, of course. Anything you frequently want to have open and flat in front of you -- e.g., cookery books -- you will prefer to be a nice hardback that you can do that with. "Coffee table" books whose whole purpose is to look nice need to be hardbacks (though I personally buy very few of those). Some books never get published in paperback editions.
When I've looked at ebooks in the past they were usually more expensive than mass market paperback, most often on par with trade paperback. Has this changed?
The “bottom end” of the camera market is basically gone now, but the high end full frame bodies are still selling.
You yourself did not read that much by own words and was in harcover group for reasons that sound more aesthetic.