There is a difference when people have never had access to things and when you take away access.
A difference would be like America and North Korea and taking away the internet. The vast majority of Americans use the internet and it is an integral part to their lives. You take it away and they would riot in a heartbeat. On the other hand if you have a regime where the majority of people never had access to the internet (or any whatever), taking it away does not cause a riot. The small groups of people that had access won't have the critical mass needed to cause such a riot.
The point is not to make a dictator to realize "Hey, maybe I'm the baddie" but "If I take this away then someone will stage a coup." Dictatorships tend not to be very stable regimes. It is hard to balance the line of power and being overthrown.
TLDR: People care much more when you remove something that is already integral to their life. Not so much if it isn't.
> You take it away and they would riot in a heartbeat.
I'm not certain that this is true.
No American Dictator would just outright ban the internet, no they'd say they were protecting children and blocking terrorists, and require internet providers to block that content.
Anyone arguing that this is censorship would be branded as a supporter of child pornography and terrorists.
A few more steps along that line and what you have is no longer the internet as we know it, but PatriotNet(tm) (insert waving flag, anthem, etc).
Do it enough subtle steps and they'd get away with it without anything more than a few grumpy "libtards" complaining on TV.
You're right in that it can be done through a long process. But as freedomben notes (in response to my reply), Egypt is an example of what I'm talking about.
A difference would be like America and North Korea and taking away the internet. The vast majority of Americans use the internet and it is an integral part to their lives. You take it away and they would riot in a heartbeat. On the other hand if you have a regime where the majority of people never had access to the internet (or any whatever), taking it away does not cause a riot. The small groups of people that had access won't have the critical mass needed to cause such a riot.
The point is not to make a dictator to realize "Hey, maybe I'm the baddie" but "If I take this away then someone will stage a coup." Dictatorships tend not to be very stable regimes. It is hard to balance the line of power and being overthrown.
TLDR: People care much more when you remove something that is already integral to their life. Not so much if it isn't.