I have no interest in setting up a bunch of engineering equipment to listen to a bunch of 60-70 year olds broadcast their uncensored perspective on things. If you know what I mean. If they want to protect that as "one of the best parts", they are welcome to keep it among themselves for the rest of their days.
The original iteration of Ham is from a bygone era when phone calls and broadcasting was the primary method of information dissemination. I don't have a yearn to go back to those days, personally.
Now amateur, self-built, internet routing outside of constraints like DNS or corporate owned infrastructure? As an augment of the modern internet where we can self host satellite endpoints to a community owned constellation and send files (not just mere morse code), that I could be sold on.
"I have no interest in setting up a bunch of engineering equipment to listen to a bunch of 60-70 year olds broadcast their uncensored perspective on things."
That was my take on it, too. I have one cheap Chinese radio in a box somewhere, but I got rid of all of my decent radios a few years back. I can just imagine what our local repeater devolved into during the Trump years. :/
The once-a-month meeting at the Village Inn was filled with laments about how there were no young people involved, but the repeater was filled with conversation that no young people would possibly want to be a party to.
I've discovered that it's unpopuler to point this out, but a big problem with amateur radio as a hobby is the current hobbyists involved.
I'm a ham mostly for disaster comms, I only occasionally participate in the monthly nets and almost never engage in random chitchat.
But I do join the annual disaster drills as well as try to help out with special events (like long distance runs or bike rides), but those aren't as numerous as they used to be because a lot of the cellular dead zones are covered, so race volunteers just need a cell phone.
The original iteration of Ham is from a bygone era when phone calls and broadcasting was the primary method of information dissemination. I don't have a yearn to go back to those days, personally.
Now amateur, self-built, internet routing outside of constraints like DNS or corporate owned infrastructure? As an augment of the modern internet where we can self host satellite endpoints to a community owned constellation and send files (not just mere morse code), that I could be sold on.