To be honest, what I do does not work for the vast majority of people, and even though I do it, it does make me nervous.

But one big reason I still do it is that the current culture thinks I am a terrible person anyway, so they are not going to think worse of me.

I have already been the target of collective vitriol once, when I spoke against one particular Open Source project rewriting in Rust.

So I have already weathered such a storm, which means I can do it again if I become someone's new target of the week.

Can everyone do that? I don't think so. So yeah, you are absolutely 100% correct.

(Side note: that experience with Rust has pushed me away from Rust, period. I don't want to be part of a community that does that. I know the Rust maintainers don't like that culture either, so I don't blame them. But it still exists, so Rust doesn't seem like a community that would want me in it.)