alt Hacker NewsThat's not really a common attitude in academia, unfortunately.
The most common attitude is something closer to "I want to be well known and respected by smart and influential people". In short, prestige.
People using your work is a side effect of success, but simultaneously threatens your ownership of your "brand". If they significantly improve upon the thing you did, your work could be made irrelevant, your prestige ruined.
Huh? Wouldn’t their prestige be improved if some other group spent a lot of effort improving on it?
That would clearly demonstrate it had real substance beyond hot air or puffery.