I think folks need to take a step back from 'business model' and think about how one does large scale FOSS w/out existing on ramen for a decade or two. In the

I think folks need to take a step back from 'business model' and think about how one does large scale FOSS w/out existing on ramen for a decade or two. In the old days you could do FOSS via university gigs (IE, an institution effectively donating resources) or work for a corp that uses said FOSS as part of their products. When the FOSS you're trying to build and share isn't covered by those- when you need to self fund so you can have an actual life- that's where it's always broken down. Patreon/gofundme type stuff can fly in single dev setups, but doesn't scale when it's a large team. There are exceptions to what I'm stating, but as a general rule, this is my experience across a couple decades of FOSS. So if you want to build this thing full time and share it with others, and not subsist just on cardboard ramen and other folks coaches, what's your options here? Provide a paid service in parallel (we host it for you). What do you do when others take your development work- which has an inbuilt RD cost (development)- and try to compete with you via offering lower prices since they're just paying hosting rather than hosting + development?