I see where you are coming from, but I find that for myself, I come to different conclusions.

I work on open source not just because I love my product, but due to an element of wanting to show off. It's kind of a badge of honor, a point of pride to have a project that people use and love.

Which is to say that, without the motivation of others using my project, wanting to contribute to it, and even wanting to donate money to the project, my personal level of interest declines ("nobody is using this anyway.")