I don't see how you can say that a hobby that adds thousands of people to it's ranks each year is dying. It is changing but it is far from dead. It is still very useful. In my community a few years ago we had a terrible ice storm. The lexington KY police and fire department could not communicate with the electric utility company. There were so many calls to 911 that the phone lines were overloaded and people couldn't get a call in from one of the local shelters. Our local ham club handled about 5000 messages that week. One call was for an ambulance to come to a shelter for a man having a heart attack.
Enjoying ham radio is all about making friends with other hams that also happen to like to be prepared for emergencies.
It doesn't cost much to get into ham radio. Most folks get started for less than $500. I don't know of very many hams that spend anything like $30,000 on equipment.
I am not sure that this change is in the best interests of ham radio but I hope that it helps make the hobby more attractive to people with an interest in technology and preparedness.