[keiferski]

I understand the hostility to making everything be monetized, however, workers do need to be paid. This might not be particularly relevant for a smartphone app, as software developers can easily get a job that pays 2x or 3x the average salary. Most "creators", however, are not as lucky as devs. The average creative person has a boring regular job and most can only focus on the work they care about if they charge money for it and/or receive sufficient donations.

This is often framed as a criticism of capitalism, or consumerism, or some other modern phenomenon. But for most of history, artisans and craftsmen were paid for their work. The expectation that they would be paid for their work is what established the profession in the first place, allowing for things like workshops and decades-long apprenticeships to exist. This is why things like the Italian Renaissance happened. In fact, I'd say that the majority of the historical artistic and cultural artifacts that we have today were created in this manner and not because the creator just wanted to make stuff that people enjoy.

It's only in the last century or two that (influenced by the Romantic movement) that the notion of art = self-expression has taken over the entire concept of culture.