But with the way things have been lately, and the dwindling pool of people who're willing to commit anything resembling EFFORT to get anything, people just want to join guilds for the level 25 perks and could give a shit about anything beyond that.

It's easy enough to spam-invite people to your guild in theory, but right now when EVERYTHING is handed to the player, the level of self-entitlement you see nowadays makes the social aspect of the guild fall apart. it's gotten to the point where we're starting to see people advertising their guilds on a regular basis again because nobody really CARES about guilds the way they used to. When you can LFR until you're geared enough to PUG the current content, where is the benefit to having a guild?

On my server, and the servers my other friends play on, most guilds are merely a vanity tag and extra bank slots for a small group of people, and the only reason you ever hear about someone looking for a guild is so they can get the lvl 25 perks.

Couple that with the AWFUL guild recruitment system in WoW and yer looking at a pretty bleak outcome.