10 Important Star Trek Details That Are Almost Never Mentioned

Before the 20th century, books were the primary form of entertainment for most people. This changed when radio shows, and later television and film, were invented.

TV shows and movies remained on top of the entertainment market into the 21st century (though they changed to an online streaming model eventually), and even during Star Trek: Enterprise movies were popular (the crew had a movie night) but at some point after Enterprise and before The Next Generation TV and film fell out of fashion.

The most likely explanation for this is the invention of the holodeck. With holodeck technology you don't merely watch the story unfold, you are actually part of it, playing a character that you usually have to research beforehand. This was a logical evolution of entertainment comparable to when television replaced books as the most common media format (books are still present in the 24th century, though mostly digitally).

We saw in Voyager that some history buffs like Tom Paris liked to make or collect vintage TV sets to watch old movies on, but at this point it was mainly a novelty reserved for people with a passion for historical storytelling (much like modern people who like to collect vinyl records).