I think this is a big part of it. I haven't gone to a non-Alamo theater in at least a decade because they do a great job of getting rid of many of the things that suck about other theaters - hordes of unaccompanied high-schoolers, people on their phones, people talking, etc. The pre-shows aren't commercials but montages of interesting footage that somehow relates to the film. And put me in the pro-trailer club - I love seeing glimpses of what's coming up and getting excited about what to see next.
That said, it's still expensive, especially if you're eating and drinking. These days, I tend to ration my movie-going to stuff that seems made to watch on a big screen or with a big group, or things that my kids want to see. Anything else I stream. As they've gotten older, movies have stayed the thing that we all still love, so when one of them asks if we can go see something in the the theater, it's usually an easy yes. And I still love going to the movies by myself. If I find myself with a day off from work and nothing else to do, that's usually where I end up.
The last component, and what I think Sean Baker was really getting at, is that we miss the community aspect of movie-going when we watch at home, and that community aspect is worth more than we think. I think about this often as I sit at my house with everyone in the same room, but on their individual laptops watching stuff by themselves with their Airpods in. The movies are one of the few experiences left where you really have to all focus on the same thing at the same time. I'm extremely introverted, and if left to my own devices, I could easily get lost in my own head, my own books, my own computer, forever, with nary a word spoken to someone else. And while that's honestly the dream, I don't think it's the best thing for me, or society in general.
Anyway, that ended up being a lot longer than I planned. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.