I use my open source projects as a way to express my ever-changing ideas about software design, learn new concepts, circulate thoughts, and get feedback.
Some projects were created because I simply didn't like the design of other implementations available at the time, had energy to propose something else, and decided to allow others to try my solution.
Don't get me wrong, I do get extra motivated when my projects are used out in the wild. However, ⭐ stars and 📦 downloads aren't the things that make me stay awake coding new stuff after having already gone through my paid daytime-job.
I'm just looking for having an impact on making our convoluted industry simpler and helping people (directly or indirectly) to become better software engineers. It's not something measurable, I know, and that's okay 😁
I do get financial support via GitHub Sponsors, which I'm very grateful for and helps me on prioritising OSS work whenever I can.