You did nothing wrong in pointing out the difference in attitude. The change in views is arguably indicative to the extent that Vlang was perceived as a real threat, competition, or could become more successful.
Vlang has continually maintained its development pace and popularity (https://github.com/vlang/v/releases), so that pretending to dismiss it as if it was nothing or attempting to smear the author just does not work. It's not going away. Vlang is also not a one-man show, but has numerous other committed developers, new contributors, and loyal long time supporters.
Actually, what people can find is the author of Vlang has been shown to welcome constructive and helpful criticism versus outright trolling or blatant smearing. For example- "What don't you like about V / what would you like to be changed?" (https://github.com/vlang/v/discussions/7610).
It was rather a failure to deliver on the promises than perceived as a threat to Zig and the target audience for both differ enough that V doesn't have an effect on the success of Zig nor does Zig have an effect on the success of V. They are both reaching for success within their own domains with some but not much overlap.
I know you're very fond of V but misrepresenting criticism or a negative view of the project as "fear", "perceived threat", and so on is rather dishonest and a disservice to the project. The above is a comparison of before release and long after where there's been a chance to evaluate V for what it is rather than for what it advertised.
Vlang has continually maintained its development pace and popularity (https://github.com/vlang/v/releases), so that pretending to dismiss it as if it was nothing or attempting to smear the author just does not work. It's not going away. Vlang is also not a one-man show, but has numerous other committed developers, new contributors, and loyal long time supporters.