[EGreg]

People live lives. Companies create products.

Sometimes what you build becomes bigger than you. If you want to quit, and everyone else wants to keep going why not let someone else run the show?

If you started a chess club, or even a chatroom, and had no time (as the guy says, he only has one life) to be an admin, would you just close down the whole thing and kick everyone out? Maybe. If they really were so passionate they'd pick up the pieces and start their own thing. Your old group might have a way to transfer the accumulated wealth to the new group. Instead of just losing it.

I remember writing an article about this a couple years ago called the Politics of Groups:

http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=135

Here is an excerpt:

If the individual - the risk is that the individual may have too much power over others who come to rely on the stream. They may suddenly stop publishing it, or cut off access to everyone, which would hurt many people. (I define hurt in terms of needs or strong expectations of people that form over time.)

[erikb]

Great question, imho. But indirectly it is also answered. It seemed like he spent the majority of the power into the project and the others would have joined when it was starting. It's like you have the chess club but other people only come if you are there and maybe even only if you have something special to offer.

[EGreg]

Right but often they come for the chess. It's about the chess for them, so they don't want to have the club shut down on the whim of a single dude.

[erikb]

Okay, you say A, then I say "not A but B", and then you continue the discussion by saying A again?