Right now in my current group, only one person owns the books (and has all the books). Myself and my roommate mostly rely on pdfs and online resources (I don't buy many physical books anymore, they take up too much space!). The other players, as near as I can tell, don't own a single book and just use the ones the first guy owns when they show up to game!
We're not going to switch to 5e part 2, Eccentric Bugaboo at the moment (we invested in ToV, we'll see how that goes), though I do plan on buying some Kobold Press books in physical form- not for my benefit, but just to be able to hand a physical book to a player at the game table.
Even though I play and run 5e (not by strict choice, mind, but what ya gonna do, game has to go where the players are), I've barely given WotC any of my money since the dreadful Tales From The Yawning Portal (which I have since passed on to some other poor bastich) and it hasn't affected me in the slightest.
We live in an age where there are many avenues to acquire the ability to play games that are way cheaper than plunking down 150 bucks for core books, and that's not going to be a barrier for anyone to play if they really want to. I imagine a future where everything has gone to a subscription model, much like Netflix- you pay for it when there's something new, then you cancel if it's not offering you anything.
One day we might not even have physical books anymore (a shame, but they will eventually become a luxury purchase). Hopefully, people will copy everything down so it doesn't vaporize someday...but even if so, after the apocalypse, a group of mutant gamers will still gather around some dusty books from mismatched games and editions and cobble together a game. And have a blast playing it.
