For me, especially when I'm increasing the bus number of something I worked on at work, it's down to two things. Either I'm hoping that my 'power' will remain the same but the 'power' of the project will grow and the new people will take their share out of the surplus.

Or, I want to focus my power elsewhere, and as long as I'm sole proprietor to this project I will be associated with it to the exclusion of other things. It was having my face pressed against glass of shiny new things I was iced out of at work that finally taught me the value of sharing. Indispensable can make you typecast. Deputizing someone has benefits that usually outweigh the costs.

I never said that, or implied it. It would be dumb to say that someone who creates an open source project is at the mercy of the people who use it.

But, many people have had the experience of dealing with loud voices in open source communities, and sometimes abusive voices. Or people who are pushing/promoting things that they want but are actually contrary to the goals and well being of the project.

As I stated, that power is a potential route to abuse. This is absolutely true whether the person is a maintainer, contributor, or creator.

If you create an open source project, of course you have absolute power over it... to suggest otherwise is foolish.

And we have seen projects that fail or collapse due to lack of leadership, corrosive culture, myopia, or burnout. That is inevitable.

My point is that we need to be realistic about these things. This goes back to the original post that "open source is not about you". Users aren't "owe" anything by a project or its creator. At the same time, creators/maintainers have a relationship with the community.

How they choose to manage that relationship is their choice... but we should be aware and honest about what that means and how it impacts the project (and the community).