[Nullabillity]

> Perhaps the author(s) of some of these things might care more about finishing and maintaining them if their ongoing efforts were producing a meaningful amount of money as a reward.

Have you looked at the average state of commercial software lately?

[ssl-3]

Yes, it seems to be much worse than it used to be in (pick a timeframe that relates to your own rose-tinted "back in the day"), but some of it is excellent.

Does any of this somehow mean that a financial incentive must make free (beer and libre) software worse?

If so, why and how?

It does not to follow, for me, that rewarding software authors with money must make things worse.

I've personally put a fair amount of money into various tip jars for free software authors who create stuff that is important to me. There is no part of me that thinks that me doing this somehow disincentivizes them from continuing to do outstanding work.