One angle to look at this: consider opportunity cost. The developer could spend X number of hours working for someone else making $Y. The value of their time to

One angle to look at this: consider opportunity cost. The developer could spend X number of hours working for someone else making $Y. The value of their time to make the change might cost that much. If OSS maintainers struggle to monetize their work, they should switch to coding for businesses if the primary objective is to code for money. If nobody wants to pay you to maintain a project, then you shouldn't maintain it (unless doing it for free makes you happy). Otherwise -- if anybody else wants work done on the project, but doesn't want to pay, they'll submit PRs themself, or assume the role of being the maintainer themself.