By the way, I think what's hurting the hobby is the damage done by yahoos who buy their way into it too easily, couldn't care less about the hobby, behave badly and then move along.
Seems a lot of manufacturers and hobby shops are targeting their advertising to people saying they need no skill, no knowledge and can have something from the store into the air in a few hours. And that's true.
Most people probably legitimately want to give it a shot, think they'll enjoy it and if they succeed they become an integral part of our hobby.
But there are just enough bozos out there who do the stupidest things imaginable and they do it in front of a lot of people and then post it on YouTube. Maybe they have so much money they don't care if their new toy gets destroyed. I don't know what they're thinking exactly but if you advertise that you don't need any commitment to succeed then you're going to get a lot of people who aren't committed. If they're normal, responsible people then no problem.
But if you look around and you see all the infighting about should we ban this or embrace it. Should the AMA divorce itself or fully defend it. All that kind of stuff is coming from the jokers who we invited in who couldn't care less about the welfare of our hobby.
Back in the days when we had to build our own you wouldn't find a bunch of guys crashing their planes on purpose over and over until it just wouldn't fly any more just so they could make a funny video for public consumption. That sort of thing just didn't happen. And nobody bothered us.
I wish people would smarten up and get over the whole idea that growth is necessary and good. It's not necessary and there's nothing guaranteeing that it will be for the better.