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I agree that some kind of disruption of this space would be great, to reward creatives. ...but practically how do you do it? The parent comment is quite right

I agree that some kind of disruption of this space would be great, to reward creatives. ...but practically how do you do it? The parent comment is quite right, going from 'pay x' to 'pay y' is one thing... but from 'pay nothing' to 'pay anything' is a massive and difficult step. You can't make it mandatory; theres a glut of stuff out there, and people will just move on to the next free (perhaps crappier, but free!) version. 'business innovations may help' is just a nice way of saying 'well darn, nothing we've tried in the last 10 years to fix this has worked... hm. Don't really have a solution for this, but it'd be great if someone figured one out!' ...which I totally agree with, sure, but its not really helpful or practical. Seriously, nothing people have tried (tips, patreon, foundations) has worked very well. No one is going to solve this problem any time soon. Of you're an open source library author/maintainer, you've got to acknowledge you're not just magically get rewarded for your efforts; you have to work for it, and (probably, for most people) your attempts to monetize it will fail. The same is true for all creatives.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago
...but practically how do you do it? If I had an answer to that, I'd be a full-time fiction writer. :) Seriously, I suspect most people aren't going to ever make a lot from creative efforts, which we'll lump open source libraries into; the vast majority of us are going to be much farther out along the low long tail of the compensation curve. I suspect the only thing that will help -- not to the degree that everyone will be able to make a living wage doing whatever they want, but to the degree that more people will feel like they're getting something back for the time they're putting in beyond the Warm Fuzzy Feeling of Sharing -- is a cultural shift of sorts. We need to uncouple the concept of "zero marginal cost" from the concept of "should be free." (I'm aware that leads down a whole rabbit hole about IP and "piracy," but I'm leaving it aside.) In the open source world, we may all say we're here for the free-as-in-freedom part rather than the free-as-in-beer part...but we're sure disinclined to pay for those beers.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago

...but practically how do you do it? If I had an answer to that, I'd be a full-time fiction writer. :) Seriously, I suspect most people aren't going to ever make a lot from creative efforts, which we'll lump open source libraries into; the vast majority of us are going to be much farther out along the low long tail of the compensation curve. I suspect the only thing that will help -- not to the degree that everyone will be able to make a living wage doing whatever they want, but to the degree that more people will feel like they're getting something back for the time they're putting in beyond the Warm Fuzzy Feeling of Sharing -- is a cultural shift of sorts. We need to uncouple the concept of "zero marginal cost" from the concept of "should be free." (I'm aware that leads down a whole rabbit hole about IP and "piracy," but I'm leaving it aside.) In the open source world, we may all say we're here for the free-as-in-freedom part rather than the free-as-in-beer part...but we're sure disinclined to pay for those beers.