Banned is maybe too far, but why should we as a country allow people to have petty power over meaningless things their neighbors do? Could we ban HOAs from being included in house sales, and every time it's sold the new owners have to opt in?
For the most part, I'm wondering about this in the context of single family homes since for homes like condos, you could make the case that HOAs are useful for shared things like roofs and whatnot. Maybe limit mandatory HOA involvement to things like what's truly necessary and shared and not how tall your grass is?
You chose not to live in an HOA. Why do you think it's OK to force others that want to live in an HOA from doing so?
There's tons of horror stories out there, but that's also because "I live in an HOA and I like it" isn't really a story that get written and shared on the internet. It's boring.
I'd never live in one. No one is telling me what color my house is or where I can put a fence. But I also know plenty of people who do live in HOA's and like it.