Let's take the real situation of most (English) folk music over the last 100+ years: where the performer is competent, loves the music, is a talented and sensitive interpreter, remembers the words, has a wide repertoire....


and the punters hate it, the ones who pay at the box office. It doesn't sound like music hall/ ragtime/ crooners/ swing/ rock and roll/ what have you, the stuff that they want to listen to. By their standard, any pop, however naff, is better than any folk, however good, and the takings bear them out.

Singers do what they have done for the last 100+ years- retreat into a self- selected community where their kind of music is appreciated. Unfortunately, or not, this is a heterogenous community, where several different minorities collaborate. If you don't want to sing exclusively to yourself, you have to put up with other people singing stuff you aren't that fond of. And because it's a small community, there isn't the depth of quality to draw on that you get in most other sorts of music. Most pub bands, however naff, are at least slick.