<antirez>

7 hours ago

Maintaining a popular open source project is psychologically taxing due to the overwhelming volume of messages, issues, and pull requests—a phenomenon called the 'flood effect'.
Attempts to manage the flood with 'inbox zero' tactics often fail because they don't allow for the thoughtful processing that community feedback deserves.
The maintainer's role shifts from designing and coding to mostly reviewing contributions, which reduces time for creative work and leads to fewer organic new features.
Working continuously on the same project for years is mentally draining; the author used to work in bursts and found that forced daily schedules reduce productivity.
There is constant fear of losing technological leadership due to misalignment between the maintainer's vision and user expectations.
Dealing with difficult people (assholes) in the community adds significant stress.
A sense of futility can arise from the belief that software is ephemeral and will be replaced, contrasting with the desire to work on 'big ideas'.

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