It's easier to get a high-paying job as a software engineer, than as an accountant or other type of engineer. There are a lot more software jobs out there, and

It's easier to get a high-paying job as a software engineer, than as an accountant or other type of engineer. There are a lot more software jobs out there, and they pay a lot for someone with just a year or two of experience. As a software engineer, I depend on thousands of separate components: tools, libraries, docs, etc. Trying to fairly decide how much each is financially worth is not worth the time and effort. Open source enables amazing efficiencies here, it removes all the friction of figuring out how to commercially license and pay for all of these infinitely-reusable zero-marginal-cost components. The shift you need is one to your philosophy of work. Don't work on open-source software which isn't rewarding to you. Don't feel bad about the projects that don't get the financial support they need. Just be appreciative of the huge amount of extremely useful and valuable open source software available, find a job doing what someone else is willing to pay you a lot for, and reserve the right to work on an open source project or two in your free time, only to the extent that you are truly interested in doing so. Just like with artists (and most professions really), no one owes you for the work you want to do, you probably won't make enough money that way - but you can make good money by finding what people are willing to pay you to do. And you can still do what you want on the side.