Sums up my experience growing up
@ilovecomputers I feel for you.
In my case it was CB radio. Elitist rebels at first then regulated and finally destroyed from within by wilful, selfish people.
@original_peterm @ilovecomputers I remember that very well. I was briefly a CB user (Bristol, 1970s) and this perfectly summarises what happened. Before regulation it was possible to deal with the selfish people via "direct action" (ahem). After legalisation, the troublemakers had the law on their side and got free rein. It's not a bad analogy for what happened to the internet. The anarchy was at least self-regulating...