[hugs]

I'd bet that money and humanpower would have fixed the problem, but they didn't have enough of either. The problem was that Elementary OS was a very ambitious project, but they didn't have the same people and money resources that an Ubuntu or Red Hat has. Has that's changed? (I don't know.) And maybe this is a communication issue on their part. They innovated with adding a payment button on their downloads page years ago, which ruffled a lot of feathers. Maybe they should have gone bolder and added larger payment tiers. "Want free upgrades? Click here to pay $600,000 to fund a team of 3 for two years!"