If I really want to spread something that brings me joy to other people so that they might experience it too, I may have to resort to polishing up the presentation. The fact that I'm trying to give something with no strings does not obviate the need to make it look palatable. This is a reasonable take I think. I also think I've known and have had a sense for that, even if I try to ignore it, because "selling" something is typically uninteresting to me. I'll try to keep it in mind the next time I have something I think I want to share with strangers, and put more effort into how it is presented so they might be more inclined to look into the actual thing I'm trying to show them.
I'll make my own analogy, with it being like trying to share a chocolate cake that looks like literal turds to strangers.
People say shit like this when they're the producer. But then turn around and nitpick when they're the consumer.
It's not selling something, it's about it being a proxy for if you understand the product well enough to communicate it's key points.
To wrongly quote Twain: "I would have written a shorter letter, but did not have the time"
What I think I said was that the comments made me realize that it is not enough to make something cool, tell people you made something cool, and expect them to figure out why it is cool with a minimalist, slightly ugly demo page, and that is I really want other people to be able to experience the joy I did, I'll have to take more time on the presentation of the documentation so they immediately see with little effort why they might want to try it. So then the choice for me becomes "how much do I care if something I made will bring a stranger joy?", and spend the appropriate amount of time on that marketing or "selling" angle.
For this particular project after the initial response, my interest shifted to "hmm, curious that these folks focused more on some alleged copyright or theft angle" and I lost interest in sharing it with people. Until I saw this conversation and thought I'd mention the previous experience, and the comment you replied to was me stating what I think I learned from the comments here.
Your "communicate its key points" is in line with what I took away from these comments, but the "shit like this and then nitpick" seems a bit hostile, to the point where I'm not even sure it is directed at me.
Thanks for the comment though.