The value of a theater is negative for me, it's a miserable experience. The volume is always too loud, you have to sit through ads, the seats are gross, people are loud and obnoxious, and you have to travel to the place. And you have to pay quite a bit of extra money for the privilege of this awfulness.
The only reason to use one is if your setup at home is very bad for multiple watchers, then you can go with friends... but even that sucks.
Seriously, why would I go to the theater at the same cost to watch at home only to have to to step through sticky floors to sit in seats of questionable cleanliness to watch a movie with the glow of other people's phones around me, watch the movie once when the theatre says I can watch, not be able to pause or rewind when I can't understand the audio because the sound engineer these days is so fucking awful that dialog is so subdued compared to everything else?
It's a shame, because I'm the sort that'd probably actually enjoy Furiosa, but no chance in hell I'm going to a theatre starting at $16 for one ticket to watch it alone. I'd rather buy a bluray at $30 than go to the theatre at $16 (before taxes, too). My TV is more modest than 80", but my sound system is clearer, but not nearly as chest-thumping as the theatre experience (trade off I'm more than ready to make, though I do enjoy chest-thumping audio for action movies).
You can put together a hell of a 4k projector set-up with 7.2 surround and all that, for the cost of about 100 $20 movie tickets, with a little bargain shopping. If you have the space for it.
100 tickets may seem like a lot but 1) you can probably have six or so people watch comfortably at once, so the ticket equivalent may be reached fast, 2) the experience will be overall better than a theater in basically every way except that you can’t compete with exceptionally-well-suited movies on, say, imax (the odd film like Dune—I saw and liked Furiosa on imax but it would have been entirely fine on my projector). Those will be the only remaining films that are even tempting to see in a theater.
Phone use doesnt seem to be an issue anymore in my city. Ive been to the theater on opening weekend 3 times this year and Ive never seen more than 10 people at my movie. And with assigned seating, no one even chooses seats near another person. The biggest draw to going to the theater these days is how empty they are. They solved the biggest issue, other people!
I think a fair question then would be what you actually love about them. Theaters do boast large screens with high image quality, but compared to a large flat screen you can have at home (where you can select your own seat) the difference diminishes. They also boast high audio quality. But as we all know, the audio quality is only great at a few seats in the center. You can certainly create an audio setup at home for not that much money that rivals the actual experience at the average seat.
There are other reasons people like movie theaters: the inability to pause the movie, nostalgia, the gathering of many people to engage in the same experience. Many of these are, to me, almost inseparable from expensive popcorn and inconsiderate behavior, which movie goers have been lamenting almost since the invention of the motion picture.
It's just kind of the experience, I don't know. It has a certain familiarity, but there's also the shared experience aspect of it. I don't like to be cloistered more and more at home, despite that being the overwhelming arc of American culture. Sometimes it's nice to enjoy a shared, familiar experience (even if the popcorn costs too much).
The only reason to use one is if your setup at home is very bad for multiple watchers, then you can go with friends... but even that sucks.