It's really very unfortunate. In USA, England, and France* clubs and associations were some of the most important and influential political and non-political entities that existed for ~200+ years. Now they have vanished. Should give us pause.

* (at least, I'm sure others too) https://twitter.com/ikirigin/status/1276936742600245248

I don't know for certain but I think its a lot of little things. I can speculate on a few.

One obvious clue is that if they were called associations, then how we fundamentally associate with each-other must have changed. I'm convinced this is true. https://twitter.com/KaseyKlimes/status/1277003965411078149

We associate differently in that modern life does not have huge numbers of repeated chance interactions and points where one can "stop by" with one or more people easily, without involving a car.

It is very much related to this thread: https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1270744177698115585

So its no wonder associations have a hard time forming, friendships themselves have a hard time forming! This I think is the first roadblock. Its 1% surprising how little the internet has chipped away at this problem, but people have kinda tried: Nextdoor, Meetup, local FB groups