I notice that people on this site and others use the word "cult" in reference to the JW religion and other religions, but I never met a person who ever used the word "sect" while talking to me. Further, oftentimes online extreme critics of the the JW religion call the WT/JW religion a cult, but I never read online critics (in my recollection at least) call it a sect. In contrast, college textbooks on the science of sociology, and entries in encyclopedias and dictionaries about he JW religion, never (in any of the copies I have found) call the JW religion a "cult". In contrast, if they mention the religion they almost always call it a "sect" instead.
It seems that the general public is unfamiliar with the word "sect" (or disinterested in using that word) and is predisposed to call various religious groups (ones which they find objectionable) "cults", without even thinking that possibly the word "sect" is a more accurate description. Why is that? Since I go with what scientist and scholars say (especially when it agrees with my experience on the topic) when it is not inconsistent with I know from experience to be true, I consider the JW religion to be a sect and not a cult, though it has some cult-like attributes. A college sociology textbook I own defines "sect" as being a group which has some of those cult-like attributes, yet the book reserves the word "cult" for more extreme groups. That same book explicitly labels the JW religion as a sect.
More specifically regarding the topic of this thread I say the following.
I agree that the 1914 teaching (in some form, including as the end of the times of the gentiles) is a core teaching of the WT (and its JW religion) and it would be extremely problematic for them to discard it. Likewise a core aspect of the religion is apocalypticism, including the idea that we are living in the time of the end and are in the last days, and that people need to be warned about the great tribulation being extremly near. Getting rid of that teaching would also be extremely problematic for them.
Regarding the book study in small homes, rather than it being eliminated, didn't it simply relocate to being inside Kingdom Halls and thus becoming the congregational book study (or congregational Bible study) instead (and being of shorter time duration)?
It does seem to me that the WT's/JW work is greatly slowing down.
Regarding their literature (besides seeing the downsizing of the number of pages of the WT and the Awake!), I notice that though they have the main scriptural text of the Kingdom Interlinear, Byington's Bible in Living English, the KJV, and the ASV are online at the WT's site, the WT's online editions exclude much of the content of those books. For example they exclude all of the footnotes, alternate readings and alternate renderings, prefaces/introductions, and appendices from those books. As a result a person can not read the complete WT editions of any of those books online at the WT's site (even though the WT's site has images which resemble the front covers of each of those books, in association with the links to the text of those books). The WT's online Kingdom Interlinear also excludes the side margin text of the NWT's Christian Greek Scriptures.
Yes figuratively "The waters supplying Babylon are drying up just as the Watchtower foretold" and while that applies to the JW religion (though that was not foretold by the WT) it also applies to Christendom/Christianity in the western world (which was foretold by the WT) - and even more so. For examples, consider the following. A dramatically increasing percentage of the USA population no longer identifies as Christian, or even as having a religion at all (whereas the JWs are still experiencing growth in the USA and especially worldwide, according to their published numbers, at least when I last checked such numbers)! In that regard the USA is now finally beginning to catch up with the rest of the industrialized nations of the western world. Now less than 50% of the USA population over age 18 claims to be Christian (for example see https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx and https://www.npr.org/2021/03/30/982671783/fewer-than-half-of-u-s-adults-belong-to-a-religious-congregation-new-poll-shows). Now even the Southern Baptist Convention (the largest Protestant denomination in the USA) is shrinking in membership numbers in the USA. Lovers of atheism have much to cheer about in regards to such demographics.
