Enthusiasm begins as light and ends as a spreadsheet.
At first, everyone can see the thing clearly. The room fills with plans. Someone says community. Someone says sustainable. Someone says maybe we should have a Discord, and a small bird strikes the window.
Then come the forms, the settings, the privacy policy, the email confirmation, the plugin conflict, the page that looks fine on desktop and deranged on a phone.
This is where enthusiasm begins to soften. Not die. Not exactly. It becomes compost. If turned carefully, it may still feed something.
The trick is not to preserve enthusiasm forever. The trick is to plant before it rots.