I just launched the project, so can't say it helped me professionally yet. Almost all of the time invested in this was pre-AI. I agree it's harder to justify those deep dives but still worth it if you do it alongside AI IMO.

Even if the project didn't become popular. Have you been able to use it as part of your portfolio to get a job, or move into academia ? Perhaps what you learned in the project was useful in some other way ?