I joined at LD50 and I've only ever done Compo, so LD59 would be my tenth in a row. What keeps me coming back is the community and the format. You ship a game, rate others to obtain karma, and get real notes and good feedback from people who just finished doing the same thing.

Reading Mike's post and then Sheepolution's, I think both of them have a point. @pov has carried this thing for 17 years through a job hunt and a house on the line, and he doesn't owe anyone a clean handover. @sheepolution is right to ask what happens to the community once Mike steps back.

The three years that are left don't have to be a hunt for the next Mike. They could be spent making sure nobody has to carry this alone again.

Open it up to anyone who wants to help run LD. Not a vote, not a popularity contest. You earn your way in by the work you ship (PRs on GitHub, helping Mike to organise next Ludums, etc.), and by having done a handful of Ludum Dares yourself. Mike keeps full veto all the way through LD64.

By the time LD64 wraps, five people have real access instead of just one. And the access is split, so no single one of them can do anything drastic alone. Day to day, any of them handles it. The heavy stuff only moves if most of them agree. Three year terms, renewable once. If someone quietly disappears, they step out. On top of that, the site backs itself up every month to archive.org. If the whole group ever fell apart at the same time, someone out there could still bring it back.

Mike stays around as emeritus after LD64, with no duties. He keeps the final say on the name until that edition wraps, then it passes to the group.

This is just my humble opinion, but what I'd like is something that doesn't depend on any one person, so Ludum Dare can keep going.