Well and sometimes control is good, right? Like if it's an apartment building where the units are owned by the tenants or condos or even row houses it helps to have an established self governed organization of some kind to keep ground rules for shared walls / roofs at the very least. And even in fully separate housing it can help if there are shared community areas like a clubhouse, pool, playground, etc. There are two main problems though:

First of all, self governance requires active participation of at least most but ideally all members. You run into that same problem with any kind of self governance and that's how even very good things like unions can get a bad reputation. If you don't actively participate in union discussions they can easily be corrupted and wind up as an even more insidious control tactic by the employer.

The second problem is specific to the history of HOAs in the United States. The concept itself was fundamentally started as a way to discourage racially integrated residential areas, then extended to discourage other types of minorities. Yes you see HOAs focusing on petty things like door color but more importantly you'll see them pushing other, more insidious restrictions. When you place restrictions on outdoor decorations you're often restricting specific religious and cultural traditions. If you're only allowed to put up lights within a certain window surrounding Christmas, you're pressuring people to not observe holidays with light displays that occur at other times of the year. When you restrict the amount of unmarried adults in a house you're pushing out poor people who need roommates and and cultures that live generationally, as well as homosexuals in areas where they're not allowed to get married / claim marital privileges.

So while there are some practical benefits, the history of HOAs requires highly active and intentional participation from everyone involved to overcome the dark history of the concept and there are very few situations in which that's worth it, especially in a community where the houses are not physically connected.

We often buy too much candy. When we realize we did, we usually have a soulful moment where we need to decide how much candy we're keeping for ourselves. Yes, we can buy candy anytime but we're adults so we usually don't buy bags of little sugar pucks.
After we've broken our hearts taking more than we need and less than we want, we usually try to wait until it's the last kid of the night who's old enough to understand but young enough to be utterly bombastically awestruck and dump some preposterous amount of candy in their bag after doing a quick non-verbal "you cool with this happening?" Negotiation with their parent.

Until they realize you just gave them 2 cups of dog food.

Sadly, corporate buyout of homes into perma-rent hell is so much worse in how insidious it is.

You really just have to hope against hope that if you are stuck with a HOA, they're already reasonable or can be wrangled into it.

Corporations are nigh untouchable, and that's horrifying.

ATM, the HOA in my neighborhood is very very tolerable. The money (all $100 per year) goes towards maintaining landscaping and the signage. The only "restrictions" they have are no above ground pools (which I 100% agree with and they were rather powerless when someone actually installed one), and if you're gonna put in a detached shed, at least try to make it a permanent structure instead of some cheapo plastic plastic thing from walmart or lowes.

it sounds almost reasonable for those weird buildings where people "own" their unit or share walls

How about a wearable poster board print out with a giant red NO stamped on it in faux blood as your costume. You can stay at home or walk the neighborhood, handing out full sized bars.

Want to be a real extra contrarian? Build a "candy stand" made of the print out. Add castor wheels and a loud speaker and flashing lights. Finally, add a button kids can slap that shouts "fffuuullll sssiiizzeedd bbbbbaaarrrrrsssss!!! at max legal volume. Roll it from HOA leader house to HOA leader house as the night carries on.

Make sure you put pictures of all the board members on it.

A-yep.

https://youtu.be/O8zBnooMLAU?t=163

Now I’m thinking it very well could have been

I think he usually did more of a "hop up" than properly standing up

I 100% guarantee you it's the latter.

I think some people, maybe no kids of their own so they have a little money, remember what a big thrill it was for them as a child, and they just really enjoy being A Generous God one night a year. Seeing the faces light up. Maybe especially if they're estranged from family so no gifts to buy. I live in a condo and the few kids in the building go elsewhere to trick-or-treat, so most people don't do anything, but my neighbor down the hall puts out a bowl of regular -size (not giant but not mini) candy bars October 1st and keeps it filled the whole month! I just put out a bowl of little ones on the night.

This might be, but I believe u often have no choice. Either accept the terms or u don't get the house. And with the housing market being absolutely shitty, I believe many people have no choice but to accept those terms, cos the alternative would mean getting no home at all.

Literally every new home going up around here is in a HOA, and the old ones that aren't sell for a premium. It's not so easily avoided. The whole concept should be abolished, or at the very least restricted to only providing services for the homes that are subject to it.

Good thing the hoa can never implement new rules or change who is in charge!

Beat me to it by 13 mins.