>I can't help but feel like some stories like this are caused entirely by pressure that the project maintainer is putting on themselves.
Most people dislike getting tons of negative unconstructive feedback on something they put effort and love into. Detachment can easily turn into indifference about the project itself. That's not even getting into the more aggressive feedback that some people will casually throw at you if you tell them no.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I can understand that. Something is needed to prioritize and filter the queue of issues without causing too much detachment on the maintainer's part.
I feel the generally remote or solo work of open source developers makes it even harder. I talked to the customer support people at work and it's the shared team bonds that keep them from burning out. They can commiserate and provide mutual emotional support if a bad customer berates one of them. They can share and reinforce positive comments amongst each other to lift morale. That is all much harder for most open source projects.
Most people dislike getting tons of negative unconstructive feedback on something they put effort and love into. Detachment can easily turn into indifference about the project itself. That's not even getting into the more aggressive feedback that some people will casually throw at you if you tell them no.