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by codr7 407 days ago
From my experience it's VERY rare for people to pay for anything unless they're forced, I do the same thing even though I'm very aware of the need for compensating creators.

Talk is cheap, and people talk a lot about supporting projects.

Maybe if we could make some kind of statistics over the number of projects that were abandoned because maintainers didn't feel like working and dealing with random people for free anymore. Make the consequences of freeloading visible somehow.
1 comments
__MatrixMan__ 407 days ago
That has been my experience as well. I consider it a bug. I'm not proposing that we all just try harder to be altruistic, but rather that we craft some institution for rewarding people who have solved problems for many without encumbering those solutions with a monetization scheme.

Make like, a week long "holiday" where you either verify that your company has made an adequate donation to the OSS maintainers that make their products possible, or we all just go on strike for that week. Or... something. I'm sure somebody has a better idea than mine, lets get creative.

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bdzr 407 days ago
> I'm not proposing that we all just try harder to be altruistic, but rather that we craft some institution for rewarding people who have solved problems for many without encumbering those solutions with a monetization scheme.

> I'm sure somebody has a better idea than mine, lets get creative.

Every creative scheme I've seen someone try to come up with fails to do what charging money for a product can. Charge money for stuff, have a free tier, enjoy sustainable software.

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__MatrixMan__ 406 days ago
That's fine for software that can still scratch the itch after it has been turned into a product, but I think there's a lot of unexplored space outside that category.

There's also a bunch of cases where adding tiers and payment flows blows the complexity budget and now what used to be a good idea is no longer worth it.

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codr7 406 days ago
Yeah, I'm not that interested in selling stuff, it shifts the focus too much for me.

But I wouldn't mind being compensated for sharing what I create by those who find it useful.

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