I 100% agree it's played out, and was never totally true in the first place.
However, compared to a lot of other sports that are complex and require a significant amount of equipment, climbing culture is a lot more weary of throwing money at the problem. Critically, a lot of serious climbers are willing to trade more money for more time climbing by selecting less-traditional careers or focusing less on corporate ladder-climbing.
I dunno, climbing gear isn't all that expensive and there's not THAT much gear you need - you can fit it all in a backpack, you know.
I see it more that adult life is delayed, since there's the opportunity and privilege to delay it. It's kinda rich kids acting like their poor kids, 'cause that's kind of a cool thing to do.
Not everyone of course, but those $100,000 tricked out vans don't pay for themselves. Lots of career folk do roll those out on weekends, but some of those are owned by twenty-somethings. In the minority, you see some people scraping by.
Again, I think you're making a fair point about the intersection of privilege and the 'dirtbag' lifestyle, but that's not really what I'm getting at. I'm just commenting that those people with 100k$ vans are sneered at pretty heavily in climbing culture. A lot of other sports cultures are the opposite, where they sneer at people who don't have the 'right' gear. Lots of rich golfers for instance that don't want to interact with the poors and run exclusive clubs partially for that purpose.
Regardless, any leisure time at all is a privilege. Working-class and poor people largely don't have time or money to do _anything_ at all, climbing or otherwise.
I also think you're putting a little too much value on 'adult life'. We can and should work on allowing more people from more diverse socio-economic backgrounds to enjoy more leisure time, not criticize the people that can.
To be honest he's not wrong. I bought my trad rack (widgets that go in cracks and carabiners for them) for around $2,000. Rope, shoes, helmet, harness, backpacks, etc on top of that is probably another $2,000 at most. Camping gear is another ~$1,000.
Most of this stuff (aside from the rope) will last for many years. Occasionally I'll lose a cam out climbing which is $50-80 to replace, but only happens a few times a season.
Compare this to skiing or mountain biking and you can see how climbing is a vastly cheaper sport.
However, compared to a lot of other sports that are complex and require a significant amount of equipment, climbing culture is a lot more weary of throwing money at the problem. Critically, a lot of serious climbers are willing to trade more money for more time climbing by selecting less-traditional careers or focusing less on corporate ladder-climbing.