How does that deal with the problem of the "social contract" of having to maintain a software project and engage with its users?

This seems more like a recipe for people who want to have an open source project but don't know what to do.

I'd wager most open source developers do not have that problem. The more common problem is that you want to scratch another itch, but your last itch based projects are still keeping you busy because they started to scratch other people's backs.