This is the critical issue. There is no lack of itches to scratch, or people willing to scratch those itches, so there is no reason to apply market optimisation

This is the critical issue. There is no lack of itches to scratch, or people willing to scratch those itches, so there is no reason to apply market optimisation techniques to that part of the problem. In fact it will provably mess things up [1] I do think non-market approaches, such as basic income, could be a useful way to help some people to focus more on valuable FLOSS-work. Non-profits, foundations and various coalitions can employ some people, and public spending could be a part. But I also think there are things n short supply that markets could help with, complementing, rather than supplementing, FLOSS-work. The Linux-kernel is largely created by companies driven by market forces as far as I understand, even if the central administration is largely neutral. So the market could drive investment in specific initiatives like qa, security, specific capabilities and such, where the central project is a non-profit driven cooperative. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory