countess richard
This thread is slipping back into confusion between tune sessions and venues with paid performers and paying punters. These are entirely different beasts.

I don't think there is a sharp divide between these two extremes; they are just opposite ends of a spectrum. I regularly attend two clubs and occasionally visit three or four others all putting on paid guests with a charge on the door. None of them use PA.

It's a bit odd to be Luddite about 'amplification and electronics' when, used properly, they are simply an aid to better performance.

In a concert, that's true; they are part of the performance. In a small venue, where they are just used to be louder and drown out background noise, they are a barrier between performer and audience.
Valmai Goodyear and I aka Droolin' Concertinas (we needed a name quickly) have been to a couple of "Open Mic" clubs. At the first, the sound man set us up and promptly legged it to satisfy some bodily need leaving us with collapsing microphones and ear splitting feedback. At the second we told them we could manage very well without, thank you. The audience continued their habitual chatter the first time through the tune then, as we went pianissimo for the second time through, actually shut up and listened (except for the soundman who talked all the way through).
We haven't been back to either.

Folkiedave
As for people listening to each other - whilst I do not deny there is a place for this - ....
But it hardly does a lot for folk music IMHO.

IMHO it IS folk music. (Well, not sure about the twenty-nine guitar players.)