The quote from the “jackass” crew is the opposite. If you’re famous you don’t need money. You just walk up and ask.

I was poor and recognizable in a tiny niche related to open source tools and 100% this was true. The recognition creates envy and ambitious people invest extra effort to sabotage you... Often, people who are rich see you as a threat and go all out war on you... And you don't have any buffer or support so you have to be 10x better just to stay afloat. Convincing people to work with you is much harder since you can't offer them any money and must offer pure equity... And your reputation, which fades over time, is the only thing that makes such equity potentially valuable.

OP has the problem that his product is much more well known than he is. That's probably why he is not richer. Though at least his product is a mainstream brand by now. He can get recognition by association once he does the reveal "I'm the guy who created Mastodon" this creates opportunities... Though perhaps not as big opportunities as one may think. It depends on the degree of control he has over the product. In general, with open source or other community-oriented products, the control is limited.