Photography snobbery

Where does it come from?

I've jumped through several online forums and I find a lot of snobbery and unfriendly people.

I'm a web developer by trade and have took up photography to get me away from the computer. The web industry is extremely fast moving and the vast majority of the community do seem to adopt the rule of "the best way of learning something is by educating others". I'm finding the photography community the total opposite of this making it quite hard to break into.

I've been experimenting with photography for a few years now, read countless articles, but find myself still stuck in the hobbyist skill level because of what I can only describe as snobbery. Whether if that's by discouraging newcomers, arrogance or just generally being quite close-minded.

Please enlighten me because I feel I'm really missing something.