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When More is Less (or Less is More)
They want freedom and community control, not "market share" for share's sake (if that means adopting DRM, back doors etc.)
Summer is almost here. We moved here in 2014, almost exactly 5 years before COVID-19. We've since then seen the place expanding very fast (it's still expanding with future proposals [1, 2, 3], aside from the concert venue, the considerable expansion of the stadium, and the hotels nearby). There's a lot of construction all around and prices go up. There are more people, more noise, more incidents. It's like "overtourism" except this time it's about audiences, concertgoers, football fans... crowds basically.
Having more people is not always an objectively desirable thing because locals get a different "vibe" or ambience when to them it is a place of residence rather than a venue for partying and chanting.
That is all an analogy, a metaphor of sorts.
In GNU/Linux, what we need to strive for is quality and users' freedom. Just getting more and more users - those who might trample over the "base" - will result in what we've seen in Ubuntu in recent years.
It's not that GNU/Linux advocates fear going "mainstream"; and it's not that they demand people come over on their (the advocates') terms. It's just that we're already seeing what Android is turning into. It's a turnoff. Many Android users despise what Google is doing.
Free software advocates want quantity in freedom quotient; whether it becomes mainstream or not is another matter. █
Image source: England