Straw man + slippery slope.

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).

Yes, totally fair. I totally misunderstood your original comment. My bad and my apologies!