[collaborative]

Some solutions:

1. "Regulate". Create an official body that charges a flat fee for any use of any OSS and then pays a % to developers based on some obscure metric. This would likely lead to corruption within the newly created body

2. "Ads". Display ads on every platform that distributes software. Then, pay part of the revenue to each software based on # of downloads/etc (this is similar to how Youtube pays content creators). This would require cooperation from distributors (Github, NPM, etc). In my opinion, it would be good for both devs and platforms, as devs would prefer platforms that pay fairly over platforms that make them give stuff up for free. But it will never happen because it would hurt capital and the platforms are controlled by capital

3. "Become unionized". Collectively remove content from traditional platforms and move it to a cooperative platform that charges $ and fairly distributes it

I think #3 is the most realistic one. There is a "museum of the working class" (forget the name now) in Manchester where they have the banners of the first industrial revolution secret guilds and societies. The new tradesmen were being abused by capital so they organised under secret oaths such as "never help a tradesman that doesn't belong to the society" or "never undercut a fellow's price". Capital will always try to make workers work for less, the only way to stop this is to get organised