There's 2 sides to this coin. I'm under no obligation to buy the thing they are selling either. It's a fundamental tenet of business to convince your customers to buy your product.
Keep everyone happy, put out an update every week/fortnight ( whatever form that may take). It's not that hard.
If you're not interested in updates then it's no skin off your nose, it takes nothing from anyone and only value adds.
Also as well articulated previously, it's one thing if a project is a year or so old, this is coming up on 8 or so years which is what it is, but to expect the same pitiful level of community engagement after this long is ridiculous. They really should lift their game.
At this point, choosing to be endlessly optimistic and defending this behaviour is silly.