The early free software was developed by the people using it, e.g. Emacs, GNU tools, Linux. GPL is a code sharing agreement among the developers. You get value

The early free software was developed by the people using it, e.g. Emacs, GNU tools, Linux. GPL is a code sharing agreement among the developers. You get value from the product and contribute back to it. If you need features, you add it yourself. If you find bugs, you submit a patch. The value is shared, and so is the cost, and so is the burden of maintenance. It is only when people started commercializing free software that it became a problem. Even Bill Gates was actually selling BASIC as Free Software, he had to make it proprietary because people were not paying him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists On another note, a lot of free software is also produced by universities, they get paid by research grants, and they don't need users to pay them. They do usually require attribution which increases the citation count on their papers.