Yes that sounds coherent with what I experienced.
I guess for people that like to build more than advertise, most projects are destined to live in the drawer.
I wouldn't say you have to "advertise" per se (well outside of a more traditional SaaS offering)... in fact I think most people particularly on HN are pretty sales-adverse.
I think you just have to demonstrate you are willing to be an active member of a community (Metafilter, Mastodon, Subreddit, HN, etc.), and then others will be more receptive to what you have to offer since it'll feel more organic.
But it can be a total crap-shoot sometimes. There is no correlation between the amount of time I've invested in a given project and the subsequent reception.
Life unfortunately is not like the movie "Field of Dreams".
