Philip Pullman: professional writers set to become 'an endangered species'
Only 11.5% can now make a living wage because there are more writers, on more platforms, but with total reader's remaining roughly similar. And a lot of these writers are using self-publishing platforms like Amazon.
Nobody is forcing writers to use traditional publishers. If they're only giving you 25% of the ebook revenue then move to Amazon who do either 35% or 70%[0].
I will say I WISH creative types (artists, writers, etc) all made a living wage, but unfortunately the market is too saturated since the barrier to entry is low-ish (although the barrier to success is higher).
There will always be a well-remunerated home for terrible writers at the Grauniad.