Nearly all established businesses finally close. There is one reason that dominates all others. Many people, whose ideas about business come from 19th Century political ideology, think competition, especially competition from bigger businesses, monopolies and chains are what drive others out of business. No way.
The reason most established businesses close is complacency. The businesses are comfortable with the way everything is running and they want to stay comfortable. As owners get old, the idea of major change, adapting to changing market conditions, just becomes onerous, too much effort.
The perfect story is in today's Wall Street Journal. Plastic corks have gained 20% of the wine corking business in the past decade. For one reason. Traditional corks that cost $01.5 cents have a risk of contaminating the wine they enclose. The Spanish-Portuguese cork industry was on a permanent Latin siesta and did nothing to deal with the spoilage problem.
The plastic corking industry sprung up, with prices over $.02, to solve the problem. One company in North Carolina was first to market with the best technology, Nomacorc, and dominates the plastic cork industry.
Complacency, by an entire industry, is why you have to throw that cork in the recycling bin not the compost.