"... why do the magical folk have to hide from everyone? The common excuse is that the masses would be frightened. ... And yet there's an interesting problem with this: In a great deal of these stories, magic has always existed. The societies are hidden but have been around since long ago. They're also very good at protecting themselves from non-magical creatures. ... Yet, despite all this power, power that they've had before Muggles have had firearms, ... witches and wizards are the ones in hiding. ... And that is the very strange conceit of most urban fantasies. The readers must believe that these creatures of great power have to be in hiding from humanity. ..."
—Lissauer, Gabrielle. The Tropes of Fantasy Fiction. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2015, pp. 158-161.
"... Realistic worldbuilding requires a realistic reason that a whole society would undertake a cumbersome, time-intensive, and expensive measure to ensure they’re never found. Most of the time this boils down to a variant of, “the world is not ready!” either because they’re a little bit terrified of being murdered by the normal world or they believe they’re better off without those normies. And this might seem fine at first glance, but it quickly unravels as realistic worldbuilding when you consider the Secret World Problem: It doesn’t really matter how dangerous or how great of a punishment exposing the world would be. If there is something to be gained by exposing it, then people will."
—Hickson, Tim. "On Writing: Hidden magical Worlds." December 04, 2018. https://timhicksonyt.com/about
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. "... The masquerade requires a huge number of people to all keep an enormous secret. Even worse, every one of those secret keepers has a huge incentive to divulge: money. Don’t tell me your hero wouldn’t like a crisp million for hiring out their magic powers. ..."
—Winkle, Chris. "Explaining the Urban Fantasy Masquerade." Mythcreants. November 22, 2019. https://mythcreants.com/blog/explaining-the-urban-fantasy-masquerade/.
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