The culture of every internet forum I've ever visited for it is absolutely deplorable. It seems like each one has a handful of really grouchy old gatekeepers who lie in wait to absolutely dunk on newcomers.
If it's still the same today as it was back when I tried it out, that's a shame, because ham radio is absolutely full of hardware hacking opportunities. Heck, you can make an antenna out of a retractable tape measure.
My bet would be, the Internet. Mailing lists and then discussion boards (and then group IMs) allowed for deeper, topical conversations, with much lower barrier to entry, so everyone left the radio spectrum - everyone except those already used to spending time on it, and not interested in moving on to the new thing.