To be honest, all the negative political talk could, and I'm sure it has, drive people away.
I still do installs on a professional level. I currently don't do it for a living, but I did it for over 10 years out of high-end shops. With the new cars coming with the "Don't F'n touch me" audio systems, people are not into upgrading them and it gets harder to do the installs. Alarms are worse.
The only time people come here is when they are doing research on a system. I ran into a guy who came in here asking questions and he received so much product choices that he lost interest. People telling him to get brands he never heard of before when he was only asking about Kicker, Fosgate, and JL Audio. If they ask for other options, we could then offer opinions on brands we are personally familiar with. These Chinese amps just don't seem to have the reliability as the more popular brands.
We should be more in-tuned with what they are actually asking and not what our actual wish list is. For example, we get people wanting to add a sub and they are bombarded with others telling them to get 2-2000 watt subs and a 5000 watt amp. WHY? So they can have major electrical upgrades that are needed? Back in the late 90's and early 2000's, 2-12 and a 500 watt amp was rattling windows. That fact has not changed.
Sorry, I went on a bit of tangent. With both of my kids in high school, I get lot of audio requests and a lot of feedback on this stuff, as well as hearing opinions they have received from other shops.