[TheRealPomax]

This statement does not mesh with companies that release open source software with paid employees working on the core roadmap but contributors getting rewarded for significant contributions (and those can be small or huge) as well, nor with foundation-backed open source projects that pay people to work on those projects even if the direction of those projects are fully community-governed.

"Being a company" and "releasing open source" are not mutually exclusive, you're just paying people for spending their time working on your project. You don't pay the reviewers, you pay the contributors, if their contribution was worth it. And they will know whether that will be the case before they even start any work because that's what issues and discussions are for. If you want to do something, and the project owners go "that's not a thing we need", you know that up front.