One of the troubling things about "folk" is the way the category/term has been used by Western elites (yes, a very generic category, but roll with it) to label huge segments of non-Western music. That is, whereas these speakers often distinguish categories of "folk," "popular," and "classical" for their own society's music, other societies' music gets lumped as folk. This appears to be driven by a perception that (most of) the music of these other societies does not have individual composers/creators, but rather that it is somehow the product of people as a group whole. That may be the case in some instances, but the broad use reflects a double standard. This is just one issue in the use of "folk" that makes it not just a simple category of convenient reference but rather an obstruction to understanding. The historical invention of the term "folk" is significant for the way it engenders a certain perception of the things it tends to label.

One might ask what was wrong with earlier terms (i.e. before "folk") to have made it necessary or desirable a label for people to start using. Was there a change in the nature or development of music that required this concept, or was the concept born of people that wanted to see music (whose nature had not changed) in a specific way, for certain reasons? If the former, can the term be used productively outside of the contexts that produced it (and which may no longer exist)? If the latter, shouldn't we be mindful of those reasons and, if our goals are not the same, consider scrapping it?