As I said at the beginning - flag of convenience.

These days (my views have changed over the years I've posted here), I suspect you might be right. Were definitions based for examaple on the content of songs (sort of "meaningful words", "related to 'the people'", etc.) invented by a 60s contemporary singer-songwriter movement to justify their material as being "folk" and possibly even to provide themselves with an outlet for their music?

Whatever, "folk" has meant different things to different people for a long time and few are going to change their minds (and btw, some will say the term "folk" is "terminally screwed" and they might have a point) about what it is.

You can give your views for all your worth but your unlikely to achieve much other than attract labels such as "purist" and "folk police", etc. and so it goes on. The Internet has been littered with such debates probably since folk was first discussed on it, there never has been a general agreement and there never will be.

I'm not suggesting no-one should ever state what folk is to them but just to be aware of this mess we have with the term...