Yes, I see that now. The rise of "community witnesses", dare I say politicians, has definitely made it more of a popularity contest. Interestingly, many want a more decentralized ecosystem, but it's talk, and it almost seems it's squeezing out technical witnesses that would work towards it.

But, being more open with progress should help. For example, I never really shared the Unix Socket support with anyone else other than node operators. But perhaps even if the community doesn't fully understand it, they can appreciate progress.