I agree with what you are saying here. The underlying problem here is that companies (being emotionless optimization machines) aren't willing to shell out for

I agree with what you are saying here. The underlying problem here is that companies (being emotionless optimization machines) aren't willing to shell out for the benefiet they are getting from open source, because people are willing to give it out for free. The only way this will get resolved is if open source contributors as a whole stop contributing leaving companies to either have to support open source in some way, or go back to developing in house. Most likely the later as it has the benefiet of retaining IP and competitive edge. What this says is that most likely open source will start to go away in the years following if corporate entities don't start sponsoring it more. Maybe some type of subscription model like academic journals, but we all know how much people like that. Also an angle you are considering are open source projects like Spark maintained by a company (databricks) for the benefiet of being used as a sales tool. This whole class of open source exists and pulls unwitting contributors into helping out who don't realize that they are benefieting multiple layers of corporate entities not willing to pay for it. And they will not see any benefiet from it (unless they use it as a personal sales tool to get a job at those companies).