Hi,
in my view being a radio amateur is an opportunity to legally play with all kinds of electronics that emit radio waves. In the ages of IOT, all kinds of far and near communication devices, protocols, ... there are huge fields of research on an awful lot of topics from hardware to signal processing, classic IT like protocol stacks, application layers, ... you name it.
If find this fast-evolving and very interesting, and I learn something new every day.
I must admit, however, that my fields of interest are not shared with a lot of radio amateurs. Of course, there are these cliques of old men telling hi-flies without any background, measurebaters, endless ragchews which equipment is better, completely uninteresting stuff to me.
Thank god not all are like this, and over time and found some very interesting guys on the web which made my hobby even more fun !
So, I think that amateur radio is not at all dead. Its only like the rest of life - there are a lot of average people who never did anything extraordinary in there whole life, and some jewels that changed the world. Ham radio is no difference.