> I wonder why anyone would want to have a popular project in the first place.
It's literally the second item in the ToC of the article.
> Why Bother? Popular Projects = More Contributors = Better Project
The author does go on to talk about how it becomes a challenge, dealing with people that are the opposite of helpful, as you also mention many people are, but the point still stands. The more popular the project, the more contributions, even if many are in the form of bugs/complaints, those are still useful. If the ratio of complaints to actual code contributions is even remotely consistent, the more complaints, the more actual code contributions. :shrug: To each their own, but at least read the article before criticizing.