Habits are hard to break. But now when I pass people, they can hardly risk eye contact. A big change from a trail encounter with a fellow hiker eager to share the adventures of the day. The great escape. The camping stores are filled with high quality useful items to make our trips comfortable on our forays into the wild.
Long trails are long trips and it gets heavy folks.
The effort involved in avoiding a problem is often greater than the effort involved in confronting the problem directly. It's an easy out to deliberately err on the side of caution. Stay on the safe side. Accept minor manageable problems to avoid major catastrophes. Hiking is a slow sport.