You're totally right about the bad attitude pushing people away. The part that gets me though is assuming every fan acts like that (which I know you didn't say, it just comes off that way). A lot of us at my shop go out of our way to be nice to new readers. We'll suggest other books if someone asks, but the main goal is just that they enjoy what they pick up. That gatekeeping stuff is real and it sucks, but it's not the whole community by a long shot. The loudest voices online just tend to be the mean ones.

Notice how many disasters start with ignored small stuff...

Oh, my friend's club tried a no-leader month and it was a mess at first, just people talking over each other. But after a few weeks, they fell into a natural rhythm and the conversations got really passionate. It proved you need some chaos to find a better kind of order.