In my opinion it is actually quite difficult to forecast earthquakes in a responsible and effective manner. The response to your forecast should be consistent with its accuracy and reliability. I do not know of many people who have learned how to do that.

What I believe I have observed over the years is the fact that when individual earthquake forecasters do not learn how to do that for one reason or another, they eventually either get so many people angry with them that they become afraid to circulate any more forecasts, or people simply ignore them and they get discouraged and stop on their own.

Another problem is the fact that earthquakes seem to have minds of their own. You may generate two good forecasts in a row. And then when your feel pretty good about the accuracy of your next forecast the earthquake fails to occur or it occurs at some location other than the one you expected. Instead of getting discouraged by that you just have to keep at it and try to gradually improve your success rate.