Oh good... a chance to rave on a bit. Your post has "let slip the dogs of war", or at least opened a can of worms!
Sadly, it seems to be the same everywhere as apple orchards are replaced by more commercially viable crops. It is a tough commercial world out there.
Here in Oz, the "Apple Isle" State (Tasmania... about the same size and climate as Washington State) lost a lot of its apple export market when the U.K. joined the European Economic Community so a government sponsored "tree pull scheme" was introduced in order to convert orchards to dairy and other commercial crops. This destroyed over 700 orchards and halved the state apple production leaving only about 20 significant producers.
Fortunately, remnants of good cider apples remain, and a small Tasmanian ,craft cider industry of about a dozen players has grown up. Although sea freight to the Australian mainland can be a bit of a show-stopper some of these products are appearing in major liquor outlets. On the mainland in the cooler S.E. regions, apple growers are planting cider apples to supplement their culinary apples.
Unfortunately, most casual craft cidermakers in Oz have to make do with supermarket juices, commercial eating apples or our own orchard apples supplemented with crabs, roadside wilds, and whatever else we can get. It really does take about 5 years to get a decent crop from a new apple tree so planting a Dabinet or Yarlington Mill etc. is a labour of love.
The sad thing is that as soon as a cider becomes successful in the marketplace, it is gobbled up by one of the big players. For example, Mercury Cider is over 100 years old, but was taken over by Carlton and United Breweries which is owned by Asahi. There are now several iterations of this venerable brand including "Crushed Raspberry Cider", I guess to satisfy the alcopop market. I wonder what Mercury's colonial founders would think of it.
However, the real craft cidermakers here seem to be fighting back, chasing around $7 per bottle retail for premium cider and selling for a little less on-line from the orchard, but not all "cider drinkers" are prepared to pay for this quality with lots of sub $5 product in the liquor stores. One craft cidermaker from the highlands cool country west of Sydney has an interesting "party trick". He shows how a litre of AJC can be turned into 5 litres of "apple juice", fermented, filtered, flavoured, sweetened, pumped full of C02, and bottled for less than $2 then retailed as Cider at the liquor store for $5.
Man, if I am realistic and factor in the cost of my consumables, gear and time, it really costs me around $2 per bottle to make cider, and I grow my own apples and scrounge bottles (but I am doing it for fun and am not very efficient!). So, how does a proper cidermaker earn a profit after paying for their apples, bottles, equipment etc when they are competing against $3 alcopops? Spread the word... DRINK REAL CIDER!
Ahh... that feels better, I had better go and open a bottle in order to settle down!