That is a very valid point. However, I suspect that some of the businesses that managed to survive transitioned into operations that function solely as fulfillment centers for dispatching packages.

The issue with that approach is that it results in numerous vacant spaces, which fail to attract enough foot traffic to be appealing to other businesses.

There was a struggling shopping mall near my home. Many retailers left the premises after one of the big stores shut down. Recently some other big brand occupied the space, in a couple of months besides it there is a Samsung store and an apple store. Now all spaces are busy and they stay busy all week long.

This makes me suspect that we highly optimised for the "2010s" online era without considering the side effects.