I'm not sure what you're trying to say regarding your second paragraph. I agree with every word of it.

The ordinary people gave up folk music of their own free will. No one is keeping it from them, not even the BBC. With the internet, there's now masses of it out there, on YouTube, Spotify and a hundred other websites, most of it for free. When people come across folk music, at a wedding ceilidh or when they find a pub session in full flow, they always seem to enjoy it. But, apart from a tiny minority of us, it doesn't resonate, it doesn't become music they seek out or put on their ipods.

If you really prefer to take the music to the sort of venues you describe, then good luck to you. I'm sure it's very rewarding when you do manage to make a connection. As a musician in a ceilidh band I often play to non-folk audiences, and it's great to see people who start the evening rather cautiously having a great time by the end. However it's even better to play to a folk audience which understands and enjoys the music.

Folk audiences are easy to please, and are perhaps too forgiving of poor performances (as has been discussed endlessly on here, so let's not start that one again), so it's true that many folk performers won't have the skills needed to handle a tough and hostile audience. That doesn't make what they do any less valid. And they do it for the same reasons that you set out - because the songs are important to them.