[chc]

I guess it might be that for some people, but I think a lot of people's feelings about Why are rather different. The thing about Why is that he was insanely helpful and produced a lot of cool stuff. His focus at the time was a project intended to help kids learn to program. So when Why suddenly tore everything down and disappeared, it seemed really incongruous with the way he'd acted up to that point, and people were left wondering … why? It's not that he turned down fame (honestly, he always rejected fame, so big surprise there), but that this incredibly nice and helpful guy acted so violently toward the projects he'd created to make the world a better place. People want to know why, and so they want to know Why.

[ryanmolden]

True, though I think most people attribute his disappearance to the outing of his real identity [1]. As to why he was so insistent on remaining anonymous, well we could only speculate, but perhaps he just felt a powerful desire to 'control his fate/life', and the forced outing of his true identity, against his wishes, simply showed he was no longer able to do that. Perhaps he felt the community was moving away from what he wanted to see and he no longer wanted to be involved. Speculation abounds :)

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3707960