There is a big difference between feature requests and regressions due to a massive UI/UX design departure.
K-9 Mail is hardly the only open source project that changed its user interface. There are always users who hate such a change. If you believe the app was written for users just like you, it’s not hard to see why you believe the developers are destroying the app. But what if the app wasn’t written for you? What if the old version of the app just happened to work very well for you and now the new version doesn’t? Why should your opinion on what the app should be matter more than the opinion of the people actually building the app?
From the very beginning of the UI change when you were given feedback your answer was no, this is what we are doing. You don’t care what your users want in this regard, you have made up your mind and are going in the direction you want. Full stop.
Realisticly, you can’t have both versions of the UI. So no matter what decision you make, it’s always a “no” to the other option.
When we started discussing the UI overhaul there was mainly one person who was very rude and whose main argument was “Material Design is stupid”. On the other hand, there were many people excited about the change, and quite a few people actually contributing design mockups and/or code for the new user interface.
The initial negative feedback after the release was mostly “I hate it. Bring back the old version”. I tried to elicit more constructive criticism and asked Why was the account overview screen useful?. A couple of people were actually helpful so a plan could be formed.
But mostly people felt they were entitled to “their” UI and they weren’t particularly polite about it. If anyone wants to know why I didn’t make bringing back the account overview screen the top priority, I suggest reading some of the comments. Think about how motivated you would feel in light of all the hostility.
Your anti user stance or whatever you want to call your description of open source development being only a self serving venture needs to be the first thing any perspective user reads on github/playstore/f-droid.
I admit that my comment was bad communication and can be read to mean I only build the app for myself. But I wrote “having the app work for me is my primary goal”, not that it’s my only goal. I spend a significant part of my week answering support requests, reviewing pull requests, and thinking of ways to make the app easier to use for other people. If you honestly believe that I don’t care about users at all, you have not been paying attention.
Surely, there’s much that I could improve when it comes to communicating with users. But it’s just like with working on the app, never enough time to do a perfect job (or when it comes to communication even a decent job).
So do I care about users? I’d like to think so. Why else would I spend so much time trying to make K-9 Mail work better for others?
Do I think users have a right to the app never changing in a way they don’t like? No. I will do what I think is best for the app. Of course my decisions are influenced by what users want. But in the end it’s my decision. And there will always be users who disagree. I think you will find this is the case for many open source projects. I’d even say it’s unavoidable given enough users.