You can work you butt off as much as you want and develop some rather cool things or things you think people should want but at the end of the day if it doesn't drive dollar value and new users then it's a failed project as simple as that.
I'll be making a post on this sooner or later.
The only way to scale something is if it can pay to scale itself.
Altruism is powerful but it can't grow past a passion project.
Even billionaires can't force networks/companies to scale like that.