The point of 230 was not to protect hobbyists, but rather to encourage big platforms (like CompuServe at the time) to moderate their users. The issue was that in moderating users, the platform makes themselves a publisher rather than a distributor (which were already immune from liability for the speech they distributed).

Without section 230, platforms will simply stop all moderation (including for illegal activity and content) to protect themselves from liability. Every single platform operating in the US would become 4Chan (or worse, since even 4Chan does some moderation).