When I hear open source maintainers talk about their woes, it tends to be that they are a single person and their are many people who try to contribute who think they are offering great things, but who are in fact just giving them shit that they must then maintain for the rest of their lives.

In a world in which there are only two people communicating with each other, you're definitely right that the point he is making can be made better. But consider that he just made his point to thousands upon thousands of potential contributors, because the message was shared. This directly addresses two of the things I hear open source maintainers complain about: it discourages the giving of shitty things and it moves away from the poorly scaling one on one communication.