I suspect this is a really common situation. Something that is big enough to be well-known, heavily used by a large enough number of users that it brings a lot

I suspect this is a really common situation. Something that is big enough to be well-known, heavily used by a large enough number of users that it brings a lot of stress, but is not big enough (by some definition of "big" and "enough") to support a team to make it all go smoothly. I've been in that same boat most of my professional career, and in fact I'm about 16 years into my journey working with the same project (Webmin; which started out with me having a company that used it in products and then ended up with me pivoting and starting a new company based around it); I'm lucky enough to not be the primary developer, and I'm lucky enough to have always had just enough money to keep an extra support person on staff and occasionally pay to make some problems go away (translations now and then, accessibility testing, UI and design assets, etc.), but having some huge number of people expecting things to always Just Work, and never have security problems, and never be confusing, and always get better but also never change in any way that might effect the way they use it, is a definite source of stress that I don't think people working in large companies will ever experience (though they experience their own sorts of stress and I don't think I would trade, even for much better pay). I've had to step back a few times over the years, in more subtle ways than this. And, I've spent time on other projects and other jobs (either to make money or just to have something else to think about and to play with new languages and tools). But, it's strange to look back on so many years of doing roughly the same thing. It's also odd to think of things that have been so clearly defined by their founder no longer being operated by their founder. This is, I guess, kinda like Rob stepping down from Slashdot a few years back. Turned out not to really effect Slashdot all that much (though I don't know how relevant Slashdot remains today, since I so rarely visit); I wonder if Metafilter has the team to keep it spinning...it's also a site I haven't spent much time at in recent years.