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High five!

It's interesting that you point to my post from 2004 about Holiday World, because even today, that park has "all the feels." I would expand those thoughts though that the enthusiast community also has never been good at reconciling the idea that parks can be profitable businesses and genuinely want to deliver the best possible experience to people.

VQing has definitely become the complete norm at this point. Increasingly, large portions of the target market (presumably families with children) have literally never known anything else. My 7 year old son has never been in a park that did not have some form of VQing. It's obviously a huge cash cow and I still remember some of the arguments about it being somehow "immoral" let alone the thing that will kill the business. In fact, I'm pretty sure every change ever made in an amusement park is "the thing that will kill the business" according to some, but it seems to be doing just fine.

That was the argument much of the time too - that, while it was a scary change for all of us, it would just be normal in the near future. That near future is here.

Disney started FastPass 17 years ago.

Anyone born since 1993-ish probably doesn't remember a Disney World without FOL access. We're literally on the cusp of the next generation of parents who only know a world where VQ options have always been a part of the experience taking their families to the parks.

All I've learned from the past 17 years of following the enthusiast community online is that they're notoriously shortsighted, resistant to change and stuck on nostalgia. Ironic for fans of such a cutting edge industry that thrives on raising the bar.

My mother in law still has some E-tickets. She's still holding out hope that POP will kill the industry and Disney will be forced to go back.
(Author's Note: First sentence is actually true. Second sentence is for the purposes of sarcasm and mockery.)