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1) WCW/ECW folded in 2001
Without WCW and ECW (to a lesser extent), no reason for WWF/WWE to push for high quality shows since their direct competition no longer existed and WWE ruled wrestling in U.S./Canada.
2) No Stone Cold or The Rock by 2002/2003 as full-time wrestlers.
Stone Cold vs The Rock was basically the feud of the Attitude Era starting from the Intercontinental title to the heavyweight title. Once they left or began to work on a few shows per year, WWE started to lose a lot of fans that built up from those 2 wrestlers. Its similar to how Hogan leaving WWF took some Hogan fans from WWF to WCW.
3) Post 2001 economy in United States.
Besides the terror attacks of 9/11, the economy itself began to weaken after reaching highs during the 1990s and the Dot Com bust. Its around same time Vince began to lose money and within a few years would end up increasing ppv prices and number of shows per year. This ended up hurting the quality of each PPV and pricing out a good portion of PPV buyers.
The other 2 probably would have been Triple H hurting RAW during his "Reign of Terror" and the eventual neglect of Smackdown once Vince believed RAW must succeed at the other show cost. Also can't forget about Ted Turner loosing interest in wrestling once he was forced out of control by the AOL/Time Warner Merger.
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