It is obvious that one fundamental reason can't be determined as proved by the responses in this thread. How do you market to or reach the masses of people who: are afraid of water creatures, lack swimming skills, are landlocked, think it too expensive, don't have time, find it easier to participate in other activities, think it's a hassle, aren't able to travel to dive locations, have partners not interested in diving, and/or don't have dive shops nearby? Impossible! If a marketing person could address all of those concerns in one fell swoop, that really would be genius!!
Whatever the reasons, they apply both to those who don't get into diving and those that have been diving.
These are some more recent numbers of divers:
*
There are between 2.7 - 3.5 million active scuba divers (2,715,000 in 2019) in the U.S. with as many as 6 million worldwide. (DEMA)
**
In 2020, there were 2.59M scuba diving participants in the USA, most of which were Casual (1.88M). Only about 708K scuba diving Americans, in 2020, dove more than seven times during the year. It’s a small industry! (SFIA)
Although the overall number of divers (popularity?) is decreasing, it is more so among "Casual divers" (1 to 7 dives a year), as there is a slight increase among "Core divers" (8+ dives a year) according to the SFIA article shared earlier in the thread. I linked it below also.
**Posted earlier by
@Cert1967 :
Scuba Diving Participation Rate & Statistics 2021
*The DEMA Fun Facts page has some interesting numbers about the diver profile (also used in the SFIA report):
https://www.dema.org/store/download.aspx?id=7811B097-8882-4707-A160-F999B49614B6
* ~66% completed college or grad school and ~62% have a decent job
* ~69% have a household income between $100,000 - $150,000 (expense was a common reason mentioned)
* ~79% are married
* 99% own their home
* The mean age is ~30 for OW level and 35 for those who continued dive education
* interesting is that the mean age for the traveling diver (don't know where to) is almost 54
* More males (60-70%) dive than females
* The top diving states are coastal states, with CA and FL leading the way by percentage (makes sense)
* Divers participate in a whole slew of other activities outside of diving (it has been mentioned that some other
activities are less of a hassle, cheaper, etc..)
It seems there is a progression not just to fitting into this diver profile but into being able to take up diving no matter who you are. You get educated, make money, get married and settle down, and when you're old enough you can dive and travel. Along the way stay active in other activities, so when you don't dive anymore, you have something else to do. Curious how many SB members fit this profile and are casual vs core divers? I didn't fit the profile in household income when I took OW at age 43, but did at age 50 when I really started diving.