From my experience getting into pool, I don't know how I did it. There seems like a lot of barriers getting in the way of making it easy to pick up pool seriously.
1) The game is super hard.
2) Table time isn't cheap, and renting table time just to bang around balls with friends is a deceptively easy way to not become a pool player.
3) I don't think new players are experienced enough to know to want training tools and products, nor would they necessarily benefit from them.
4) Finding concrete answers to questions isn't the easiest thing to do on here (possible due to the fact that pool is a very individual and personal thing).
After writing all of this, I feel like the major problem is that pool is fun enough even if you have no idea what you're doing. I'm from Canada and there's no rich history of the coolness of pool where I'm from. It's just something you do if you've exhausted the idea of movies, restaurants, go karting, and laser tag. The game is entertaining and enjoyable enough that no one takes it seriously. To take it seriously, is actually inviting a whole world of frustration.
I think unless the stars align and you're got that competitive and obsessive bug, actual pool can seem very unappealing.
Did I mention it was hard....like really hard.
I think if there was a game in pool that was MUCH easier to excel at, there would be more players. It seems to be all about making pool harder, at the top levels. Bigger, tables, tighter pockets. 10 balls instead of 9. I've met players who've played for years and have never run out a rack of 8-ball.
I've been playing for 9 months straight, and despite all the effort, I've only run out maybe 7 times.
How can we get new players, if the idea of playing a perfect game is not even a thought that would occur to them? Something where playing a perfect game should be somewhat attainable, but playing a perfect set is difficult. I think the one thing bowling has, is that a strike is much more satisfying than a single pot. A person can easily start getting multiple strikes in a set and feel like they could see themselves playing in a league.
That or somehow designing an object ball that has dashes on them, so that a player can know that if they want to make this cut, they have to aim at the 3rd dash to the left. That way, they can get something repeatable going. (I have no idea how you would make such a ball, all I know is that aiming a sphere at a sphere is a big hurdle)
Edit: Maybe a sort of foggy clear-ish object ball with a darker sphere in the center that divides the two end 1/4's as an unchanging point of reference.
Or a 13mm ball in the exact middle of each ball, including the cue ball.
