Toadfrog, you raise some good points amongst your rant.
It's not necessary to draw crowds and have a big auditorium, but it is desirable to stop the more traditional side of folk music from becoming extinct and gaining a reasonable amount of support from people who might be interested should help.

I agree we shouldn't change it into pop music. It's worth the effort of performing traditional music as well as we can, to persuade people that it is worthwhile on its own merits.

It's not a religion, but it is satisfying to turn on a new listener to folk music when they have never heard it before and discover they like it when it's done well.

We don't want to make people listen to stuff "they are not interested in hearing", but do you remember the old Guiness advert with the caption "I've never tried it because I don't like it" ?

Anahata