I truly don't understand the appeal. What is enjoyable about this experience? I like risky and athletic stuff and have done a bit of climbing (nothing technical) and the appeal there seems quite obvious - in addition to the adrenaline rush, you've got clean air, beautiful vistas and scenery, etc. A pitch-black, dank hole in the ground - ugh. The thought of getting lost, especially getting lost and losing illumination, seems like the ultimate nightmare. On the plus side, those big caverns with various mineral formations do look quite spectacular. But you tell me, what's fun about this?
Open water diving around coral reefs and shipwrecks is simply beautiful. (Maybe sadly now less-so than it used to be.) Divers love to spend time down there in a weightless state.
I think what happens next, if you get deep enough into the sport, is that you become good at it and you are looking for stronger challenges to overcome yourself again and again. That's how you become a cave diver.
Still there are some special places down in the caves as well. And I think what makes them even more specials for the divers is the feeling of exclusivity that most people would never get to go there.
Once a saw a misalignment between market demands and current tech stack my employer was using, I changed jobs. I’m on job #10 now.