> Yes, you realistically cannot implement everything every user wants, but at the same time your software is meant to solve problems.
It's a question of whose problems. It's highly unlikely that we perceive the same problems in the same order of priority, so why should I donate my time to your problems when I am already wishing for more time to implement the solutions to my own? In commercial software there's an obvious incentive to work on features that are in demand by people who will pay for them. Expecting people to act like that incentive still exists even when it doesn't is insane.
> I've been on both sides of this discussion, as an OSS maintainer and user, and have experience with demanding users and arrogant and, yes, _lazy_ developers alike.
The gall to call someone who doesn't want to work on your problems for free "lazy"... Now imagine that you voluntarily participate in a very active OSS project and there are tens of people like you who extend that massive middle finger over and over whenever they can't convince you to donate a work week to their esoteric dream feature.
> Let's stop the narrative that users don't have the right to request features because they're not paying customers, and that this is driving developers to burn out.
The "narrative", again, is "that you're not entitled to demand new features, as a (non-paying) user, you can't allocate dev's time to work on what you want." This is the card you insist is played too often, not that "users don't have the right to request features". I don't see how you could honestly get these two things mixed up.
> Keeping direct communication with your users, and understanding what they find useful or not, should be the driving force of the design and features of your app.
It's a question of whose problems. It's highly unlikely that we perceive the same problems in the same order of priority, so why should I donate my time to your problems when I am already wishing for more time to implement the solutions to my own? In commercial software there's an obvious incentive to work on features that are in demand by people who will pay for them. Expecting people to act like that incentive still exists even when it doesn't is insane.
> I've been on both sides of this discussion, as an OSS maintainer and user, and have experience with demanding users and arrogant and, yes, _lazy_ developers alike.
The gall to call someone who doesn't want to work on your problems for free "lazy"... Now imagine that you voluntarily participate in a very active OSS project and there are tens of people like you who extend that massive middle finger over and over whenever they can't convince you to donate a work week to their esoteric dream feature.
> Let's stop the narrative that users don't have the right to request features because they're not paying customers, and that this is driving developers to burn out.
The "narrative", again, is "that you're not entitled to demand new features, as a (non-paying) user, you can't allocate dev's time to work on what you want." This is the card you insist is played too often, not that "users don't have the right to request features". I don't see how you could honestly get these two things mixed up.
> Keeping direct communication with your users, and understanding what they find useful or not, should be the driving force of the design and features of your app.
Who are you to decide what should motivate me?