OK, so I'm a little confused. Was the so-called "revival" of folk music in the '50s and '60s here in the US...

... an aberration/a commercial endeavor that was almost all watered-down,

OR

... a legitimate revival of interest in folk music that was later co-opted by the aforementioned commercial recording outfits,

OR

... a temporary "moment in the sun", commercially speaking, but not a revival that has somehow died? Is it fair to say that there are still effects of that 'revival' being felt in the music world today?

I know this kind of thread has probably been started many times before, but I just want to get my bearings as to how to understand this period in both American popular music and within the larger context of folk music in general.

Which, if any, "traditional" or more heavily trad-leaning, artists, had any commercial success? Were the commercially lucrative and viable artists known as "folk" really just climbing on the backs of relatively unknown and unheralded creative geniuses that came before them?

Or, is the opposite correct? Did (or does) legitimate, traditional folk music BENEFIT from the fact that watered-down commercial stuff was called "folk", thus sending many young people to the music stores and record shops to try to find "folk" instruments and recordings, thus exposing them to the works of the earlier artists?

Help me put this thing into some kind of perspective, if you can.