Every hobby's participants think their hobby is dying. Organizations from Moose lodge to VFW, and all in between think their groups are dying. Churches, small businesses, community groups, libraries, all think they are loosing participants. Older hobbyists in stamp collecting war gaming, and model trains can't understand why young people and kids aren't interested in their activities. They think their hobby must be dying.
Why do we older hobbyists need kids to validate our activity? In the 70's I was at best one out of 200 boys in school that played with model airplanes. I only had one other friend that did. I knew of no Fathers that did either. I was in a major metropolitan area too. Was that any indication of the hobby's health?
What real evidence is there that the RC model hobby is dying? Club membership numbers and hobby shop closings are not really valid indicators of hobby participation.