Holding chapters hostage

I dont read stories on here much -- with the exception of comment swaps and of course my lovely Nic's stories -- but recently Ive noticed a few people mention authors holding chapters hostage. Back in my hay day I ran into this a few times.

"I want 5/10/20 comments before I update."
"I want 10 new subscribes."
"I want you guys to vote on my poll before I update."

It would upset me because some of these stories wouldn't have that many readers and I would wait upwards of months for a good story to be updated or it would be taken down because the author had a tantrum that it didnt receive enough attention.

So here's something for you authors who take stories hostage or even for the ones who don't receive as much feedback as you would like:

Better to write for self and have no public, than to write for public and have no self. - Cyril Connolly

I was watching Criminal Minds -- that episodes with the "vampire" rockstar whose manager gives girls to a crazy, obsessive fan to sell his new CD better -- and if you watch CM you know it ends with a quote.

That's the one for that episode and its perfect. As a writer I always find myself thinking "What will my readers like?" and "What will get my readers to comment?" When in reality I should focus on the writing, on the plot and characters. Not the readers. Never the readers.

Yeah its great to write something and have people tell me how great it is but when you're young and starry-eyed and first start writing our first though isn't "Im gonna do this and be Mibba famous"

So don't write for readers. Write for that first spark of inspiration you ever had, that first burst of motivation. For yourself.