You haven't obviously looked at the radio market lately. Africa is flooded with cheap Chinese receivers which are perfectly capable of picking up the big blowtorch broadcasts from São Tomé, Ascension and Cerrik, Albania. Some of them can be had for $10-15 USD. Not exactly cheap by Africa standards but still pretty affordable compared to an internet connection and a smartphone or PC. An FM radio is just as costly and those signals are all domestic which means in conflict areas, they are controlled by whoever has taken over the transmitter site. Shortwave still works because it can be broadcast from outside a war zone, from independently controlled operators. Of course no one in urban areas where ratings are measured are going to want or need shortwave. It's for the isolated parts, and I doubt anyone is sending diaries to the rural Amazon.
I've got a Kaito China-made radio that cost less than $60 but performs as well as a $300 radio of just 20 years ago. Better in some respects, really. The CountyComm handheld that was gifted to me is meant for government use but it even outperforms the Kaito with just its built-in whip thanks to good DSP. And I think it's under $40 now if you can find one from an importer.
There are still plenty of use cases for isolated peoples being served by shortwave. It's not like it was 30 years ago, granted, but it still has a great purpose, just like HD radio does. Australia and New Zealand both maintain a pretty good schedule of English programming beamed to the south pacific island nations since they are isolated, have slow to non-existent internet and local services have mostly abandoned AM for FM, so outlying areas no longer have reliable radio or TV service. Australia's shortwave service is so popular with DXers that they no longer offer QSL cards because the correspondence was costing too much. So someone somewhere is still listening.
South America is like North America - internet is much more affordable, FM is ubiquitous and radios are everywhere. That's not the case in Micronesia or South Sudan. At least not yet. But even here it seems to be still going along. Radio Nacional Brazil is on 24 hours a day somewhere on SW. RN Amazonia booms in here each night on 11780 kHz with interesting music. I know most of the South American broadcasters are gone, like HCJB, though. The few that remain seem to be religious, just like in the US. Even the CBC maintains a few transmitters for remote north access. One in Vancouver and one in St. John's on 6060 kHz, IIRC. The St. John's one is only 300 watts but I hear it several times a month. And CFRB in Toronto still has their 6070 kHz transmission with 1 kW. I dunno who it's for or if they even know it's still on, but it's nice to listen to and is a solid catch here in the US at night.
Be honest. You know better.