Unfortunately, explicit gratitude is very rare. Donations are even rarer. The "ask a question" and "support this site" buttons on my website are next to each other. I get 15 questions for every donation. About 30€ per 100 000 visitors, from 1-3 visitors. Those who email me with questions never donate. I'm not complaining about any of this, just illustrating my point: you can't use gratitude as a metric for the value of your work.
Critics, on the other hand, are disproportionately loud. As a community moderator, I learned that for every complainer, there are dozens of quietly happy users. You can only tell by the votes. No one will create a thread to say "everything is fine, keep it up".
If someone made your day easier, or if they created something good, take a minute to thank them. If they saved you a ton of work, consider a small donation. A lot of people are tirelessly, thanklessly creating things that benefit you. It costs nothing to acknowledge it. Never let a compliment go unused.
In the last few years, I became better at expressing my gratitude to creators, maintainers, colleagues and friends.