[seydor]

> have a path to monetization for the builder

The existence of the path to monetization is entirely outside their control though. Millions of people make viral videos, very few have benefited from it. The financial system disincentivizes or outright bans open-product monetization.

[johngossman]

The many startups built around OSS projects such as Mongo, Kafka, Spark, and Linux seem to have found a way.

[redwood]

There's a longer list of companies that have been basically out-competed and strip mined by the hyperscalers. But presumably the poster here is referring more to a long tail of small to medium sized projects that are important to the community at large but harder to monetize then these big high gravity projects that you mentioned

[seydor]

very few, one would call them exceptions to the rule