On the other hand SO'P keeps insisting that 'all-music-is-folk-music'

I think my point is more along the lines of all music can be folk music, depending on context. This gets us a lot further forward.

and replaced with commercial pop music which is very largely, passively consumed by the majority of the population.

Passively? I think not; the consumption of popular music has always been pretty active in my experience & continues to be so.