To clarify my perspective: I like computers a lot, and spend a lot of time on them. I can do the slightest bit of programming, usually editing existing code for PRs. I try to approach Rust, but getting proficient at writing it has come slower than with Ruby/JS.
I do think it's trickier to pick up. (My expectation may be unfair, since these are interpreted languages. I'm much better with those than Rust or even C.)
As for my criticisms above: maybe it's just that I've spent so much time learning about the rust community/developer story that "knowing about [meta] Rust" takes up more space in my brain than actual programming knowledge/experience programming with it.
I blame "meta Rust stuff always being adjacent to docs/getting started resources" for that heavy association that I have between the two.
You can't look something up without being reminded that things are subject to change, and hey, maybe you personally will make the change! ("Why not! Go for it!") Which, cool, but I literally learned more about meta Rust stuff than using the language, so... This sounds weird to say, but it's distracting. (To be fair, I have ADHD, so maybe that's a part of it. I see something about meta that's framed as being exciting and I want to look it up.)
I was personally able to submit a PR to improve an error message. So yeah, I can contribute. (BTW, thanks everyone who helped with this or was encouraging!)
As a programmer in any other language, I spend much more time thinking "how do I make my code run/stop erroring" but with Rust I think a lot about "where is the language going" and "what component updated that makes me have to look where for docs" (aside: everything is super modular in the Rust ecosystem and seems to have its own independent, near-rolling release schedule)... All these blog posts/proposals have interesting stuff in them, do I have to know about this?
I have often been told when I say things like my above comment that I'm wrong, that Rust is super accessible. Maybe everything is so accessible that hitting a first snag feels worse, as my expectation are high. Or... maybe the experts in the room are inclined to think everything is hunky-dory, despite them being too advanced to see the snags a total beginner runs into. (I admit it is difficult to see outside of my perspective to see if I might be wrong about the "experts," because I consider myself not part of that group.)
As it stands, my skill in reading Ruby/JS is higher than my ability to read Rust. And I feel like I may have spent equal time learning about each.
tl;dr Learning about meta stuff is required for actually contributing to improving the language. But it doesn't necessarily make you a better programmer. I have found myself side-tracked by meta stuff/community, because it's maybe more interesting than buckling down and learning to code Rust.
All told, I am still really fond of the community, I just think it's ironic I like them so much without my being able to code Rust very much.
P.S. In having to defend this view (here and in a couple of previous posts), I'm starting to realize I like the social aspects of programming, and helping people by submitting PRs, and I might naturally gravitate to the more social side of programming than the nitty-gritty systems code side of things. Rust stands out for having a lot to do socially. I wish I could write it better, but I never learned a ton of C either, so it could just be that these languages are harder to learn than the ones I'm better with. In which case the social stuff being "a lot to take in" could be a red herring, regarding whether there's a blocker to learning to write Rust proficiently.