OK, indicators of interest. Would you bet on a project nobody cares about?

I guess if I viewed software engineering merely as a placing of bets, I would not, but that's the center of the disagreement here. I'm not trying to be a dick (okay maybe a little sue me), the grandparent comment mentioned "software engineering."

I can refer you to some github repositories with a low number of stars that are of extraordinarily high quality, and similarly, some shitty software with lots of stars. But I'm sure you get the point.

You are placing a bet that the project will continue to be maintained; you do not know what the future holds. If the project is of any complexity, and you presumably have other responsibilities, you can't do everything yourself; you need the community.

There are projects, or repositories, with a very narrow target audience, sometimes you can count them on one hand. Important repositories for those few who need them, and there aren't any alternatives. Things like decoders for obscure and undocumented backup formats and the like.