For a large, VC-backed open-source startup with many employees, yes, the cloud providers have made this obsolete to a large extent, Open Core not withstanding.

For a large, VC-backed open-source startup with many employees, yes, the cloud providers have made this obsolete to a large extent, Open Core not withstanding. For a single author of a popular open-source product or library, it's still very possible to earn a good living working on the thing that you built.