this thread has got me thinking, remembering back in the day VS today.
electric was 7 minute run times and 30mph speeds so we use to want nitro because it was easier to go fast (40+ mph) and run times were virtually endless (just keep squeezing fuel into it) we didn't mind the extra work back in the day. cleaning wasn't an issue and tuning was easy enough to learn. fuel was cheap, i remember buying my first gallon of nitro for $20. glow plugs were like $3. even for a teenager paying out of his own pocket, it was doable. the mechanicalness of nitro had a cool factor to it. it made noise which had a cool factor. plus 1/8 buggies were nitro and those were something to dream about. $400 RTR basher buggies didn't really exist, at that time, they were race cars and they were expensive. going from 1/10 scale stadium trucks to 1/8 buggies was a whole nother bigger meaner animal, like a chimp to King Kong. giant RTR's didn't really exist outside of entree level 1/10 scale (mainly traxxas). the nitro MT craze hadn't fully kicked in yet.
looking at today. RTR everything. brushless electric everything. the cars have gotten bigger. nitro has actually gotten easier, a modern nitro engine makes more power and is easier to tune. but the people can't be bothered. they don't want to learn to tune it, they don't want to have to clean it all the time. minor necessities are so inconvenient that they can't be dealt with. electric matches or exceeds HP and has become idiot proof plug and play and forget about it. its become a convenient toy instead of a hobby. back in the day a hobby was part of life. today people put life on hold to check texts and social media every 30 seconds, nitro can't compete with that. things have just gotten lazier.
on a side note. i remember a lot of debate back in the day as to what was cheaper. back in the day it was claimed that electric cost to much because you had to buy a charger and batteries. today people say nitro is more expensive because you have to keep buying fuel. as somebody who's been running both sense about 1998, long term ownership is about break even. it was like that back in the day. its still like that today. nothings changed but public opinion. its a weird thing.