[Ekaros]

A society would owe something to person picking up trash in their free time. But I am pretty sure society will never end up paying even minimum wage for that labour...

It is similar to open source... Something has value and is good for society, but society neither has willingness or ways to reward it.

[kevingadd]

Where I live in Seattle we fund keeping the streets in good condition. I see city staff roaming around during the day from time to time wearing hi-vis, doing stuff like picking up trash or removing graffiti.

If trash is lying around only getting picked up by generous citizens in their spare time, what that implies is that the city/county have chosen not to invest in maintaining the streets, and the citizens have elected to throw trash everywhere. I don't think we should take either of those conditions as a given. Better things are possible.

[fsflover]

So because it's wrong in your picking-trash example, it should remain wrong with FLOSS too?