To be fair, I run a news reader and you wouldn't believe some of the hate mail I receive. I just assumed he received much more of it and not enough of the positive mail.
Also, when you're at the business end of a press blitz, you get overwhelmed and can make irrational decisions that you might come to regret.
It was the same for me when I was project lead for Gaim/Pidgin. I was lead for something like 6 years and I eventually got tired of the hate.
Sure, there was plenty of praise, too. But the harassment eventually became annoying. It hit it's breaking point when someone folks managed to figure out my cell phone number and would call me at all sorts of hours (3am once!) to "tell me about their ideas."
I changed my cell number but it eventually happened again.
Most of my interactions with users were positive, though. But, the various legal issues, hateful folks, and my day job suddenly taking more time I decided to give it up and pass it on to someone else. I had already become mostly observational/maintenance on the project in my last year there anyways.
Slight digressions aside, I was fairly young when I got with the project and it was surprisingly to me how angry some people could be for no reason at all.
Big difference is you weren't being paid! I had a free and ad-free app on Android and I got some abuse about missing features. I took it down after a while. The sense of entitlement was unreal. Now if I was making $50k a day, I'd take all the abuse that could have been thrown at me!
Pidgin/gaim fan here - thank you. I think I started using it just before the time of the name change and it's had an enormously positive impact on my life. That might sound silly but it was one of the few Linux programs I knew how to install and configure at the time.
Also, when you're at the business end of a press blitz, you get overwhelmed and can make irrational decisions that you might come to regret.