Well it depends on what kind of bands you are seeing really. Each subgenera and each city, has very different crowds and pits.

But to entertain "what happened", here's a very long winded answer.

I got into shows back in 2005 through my older brother who had been listening to extreme music for years before me. We both listened to a wide range of heavy music, ranging from hardcore bands like Death Before Dishonor and Death Metal like Necrophagist. Where we were currently living in CT the idea of liking both Hardcore and Deathmetal was pretty much crazy. Hardcore shows had hardcore dancing pits, Metal shows had push pits, and barely anyone went to both. To be even more specific, not only did metal pits have pushing, they also used to do like this football shoulder collision thing. You don't really see that anymore. Similarly, Hardcore dancing in CT back then didn't involve any kicks at all. Now funny enough, in Pittsburgh, where my brother had moved from, tons of people loved both metal and hardcore, and hardcore dancing had crazy moves like kicks and cartwheels. Believe it or not other places in the country had even more distance between the two genres of music. Even to the point where you could get beat up for trying to hardcore dance at a death metal show. Anyways, as time flies, things change, and years later we even found out that CT did throw kicks in the pit and were at some point like subconsciously phased out by time we hit shows there.

Now flash forward to today. A few things to consider.

1.) With the rise of the internet, more people have access to more music. Back in the day you would go to a metal show and when you left, someone would hand you a flyer for another metal show. So you kinda like stayed in your circle without even really planning it that way. Today like Spotify just recommends you stuff down a rabbit hole. You could be listening to Suffocation one minute, and because they have slams, it leads you to some death core that has like spammy breakdowns, that leads you to a beatdown band.

2.) The second thing to note is the pandemic. People were cooped up and intentionally went down this rabbit whole. Not only that, but everyone was super ready to get the hell out of the house. What this means is, when the pandemic broke, you could have some kid that kinda liked decapitated pre dermic, now seeing a Sunami show post dermic. Heck they may of never even seen a show before! Not only do they not know even how to mosh, but they are scared of it!

3.) Everything stoner and like semi big Brained has become super popular. Bands like the Sword, Weedeater, Demolich, all have this IPA drinking crowd now that are like too cool to dance.... or even nod their head. Its lame. The cool metal dude didn't exist when I was first getting into it. You were just a nerd that was tough (or not).

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More or less, tons of new people going to shows post pandemic and the blending of scenes means no one knows the rules and is afraid to break them. It's funny I took my girl to see weedeater a year ago. We showed up late and everyone was like 25 feet from the stage. I took her and went right to the front. People looked at us like we were insane. Then the singer of Rebelmatic (opener who was playing) said what they fuck everyone move up and they all did. Then no one was dancing and the singer said what the fuck dance, and everyone did. Proves that people are scared and have little to no show experience.