Many of the points you make apply virtually anywhere in Thailand. Locals are everywhere indifferent about local pride, keeping the place clean, managing it properly, not treating the mass of tourists as ATM machines. Same for overdevelopment, that is what ruined CM, it all split into 5-6 areas from 1-2. In terms of transport options I have to disagree too, you can fly to Singapore, Hong Kong, Krabi, Phuket or Bangkok with all direct transfers to international, as immigration done at Samui already in that case. As well boat options to surat, phangan, tao, chumphon, flying from surat, train from surat and bus from surat. All these things only have drastically improved in the recent years. It sounds more like you are pretending this is only the case in Samui, left somewhere quiet, and pretend it not happens where you live now as it is quiet, there is nothing going on. If for some reason they injected cash where you live now, the exact same thing repeats there too. Otherwise anyone that lived here the past decades, myself included, understand the general points you try to make. For Samui itself it really amazes me to the point that covid showed there is nothing but tourism, to then see how they treat tourists today, poor service, roads are madness, high prices. Then more and more workers that are in construction, electrician and whatever 20-30 other jobs, moved now permanent to the island, which takes even more cheap housing away from hospitality workers, as they often earn less, while none of this 20-30 jobs will stay to be here in the next years, especially not now that they put the last nail in the coffin of tourism as well as in developing properties using nominee companies (good anyway for that one). Last but not least the local expat beach clean groups are just delusional entirely, the people that run it need it for their own visa and life on the island, while they receive small support from local gov, which makes the local gov evade real responsibility. You really can not stick your head in the mud much more while being a hypocrite in the same time, part of the problem. I have lived in over 10 places for at least 1 year, while i also visit south, bangkok and chiang mai every 2 months max a few days, so i would say i have a pretty good idea, of the last 20 years. This aside of also visiting regional every 3-4 months for 1-2 weeks.
