I guess that's the difference.
Public status, from users and funders and journalists, comes from being Ze Dev.

Support roles tend to only have "project-internal status". I.e. only the people working on the project care about their effort. So devs who give people in support roles the feeling that they care about their work, and that they're part of a team, will get more work out of them. Everyone else will get less.

I've been slowly distilling my focus down to helping a few particular devs, because they seem to value it, most. I think those are the devs with the longest-term potential because they know how to motivate staff. They're the people I can picture running a company. 

 Same.