Popular music is only unpopular when it's too popular for its own good. Burn out. “...never again as long as I effing live, please” gets voted the most popular cover of Wind Beneath My Wings and so it goes. Otherwise, +99.9% of consumers do not care what any one artist thinks, says or does.

1930s Stinson Trading Co. & future Weavers producer Milt Gabler both ran on the business model of not popular but still profitable music…eg: the bargain bin concept and the United Hot Club jazz reissues. What's not to like?

All three parts of the 1940-1970 'pop algorithm' (media sales, juke box plays and AM radio requests) have gone away with the media. Not coming back.

Folk, as a pop genre, was all but gone before the physical media died. It only exists today in music industry awards and the e-commerce world of infinite shelf and floor space. If mainstream “brick & mortar” retail somehow managed a miracle comeback, Folk would continue to be parsed out into Oldies, Country, Pop Vocal, World &c &c.

Otoh… It's never been easier to listen to free folk music on the internet… Weavers, Belafonte, Fred Neil & the 2022 Grammy winner… all courtesy of ytube; Warner Music Group et al, right at your fingertips. Free, save for your utility bills and their commercials of course.