I'm reminded of something that was once said to me in a totally different context, discussing the taxonomy of plants: "the plants don't know what species they are."

The main disadvantage of the broad way in which "folk" is used from my perspective is that it means that if I crack open something like Spotify and search by genre I end up hearing lots of stuff in which I have no interest at all.

But as long as somebody waters the plants, we'll be fine.