This is about like asking if there's a place for model airplane / RC enthusiasts (commercial airplanes and airlines exist!). Or gearheads w/ cars (you can just

This is about like asking if there's a place for model airplane / RC enthusiasts (commercial airplanes and airlines exist!). Or gearheads w/ cars (you can just take a bus, airplane, etc or drive on the highway). Or raspberry Pi enthusiasts (dell will give you a perfectly good computer). You get the idea. It's the tinkering. If RF tinkering doesn't excite you, or if decentralized communication (truly decentralized - no other equipment but your own required!), then yeah, HAM may not be for you. As for the future - I'm quite excited about digital, and I can imagine something like layering more and more functionality on tiny digital protocols. You can already route emails. I'd love to see delay-tolerant networking ported to HAM, so that you can have offline "couriers" of data that automatically re-transmit when they connect. Then you could set up your vehicle as a "mobile data mule" when you drive through cities or across the country.