The system of control is easier to gum up through the analog equivalent of DDOS (in short, give it too many ‘bad guys’ to chase) than it is to resist openly.
Look what happened with the snitch mask call lines last year. Flooded with reports and made useless before they began. Rather than hide and be defeated piecemeal as we emerge, better to appear to be everywhere.
Absolutely, CB radio was another example of mass noncompliance. Fairly regulated at the beginning, with licensing, transmission power limits, proper “protocols”, 10 code, and micromanagement about “language” and just bullshitting instead of purposely getting your communications business done and getting off the radio.
There was so much mass defiance and rule breaking they had to just give up trying to regulate it anymore. Not enough resources to control it, so it turned completely unregulated and still is because they can’t, it is beyond control.
Wikipedia puts it like this...
“The popularity spread further into the general population in the US in the middle of the 1970s. Originally, CB (named Citizens Radio by the Federal Communications Commission as of 1972) required the use of a callsign in addition to a purchased license ($20 in the early 1970s, reduced to $4 on March 1, 1975); however, when the CB craze was at its peak many people ignored the requirement and invented their own nicknames (known as “handles”). Lax enforcement of the rules on authorized use of CB radio led to widespread further disregard of the regulations (notably in antenna height, distance communications, licensing, call signs, and transmitter power). Individual licensing came to an end on April 28, 1983.”