Ah, I see your point now. Not "how can you generate income (at all)", but "how can you generate income more effectively than a competitor who is drafting off yo

Ah, I see your point now. Not "how can you generate income (at all)", but "how can you generate income more effectively than a competitor who is drafting off your development, to ensure you don't get competed out of business". Makes sense, sorry for initially misunderstanding! I still don't think this is an intractable problem, though - there are still some properties that provide a moat to allow you to survive: * the experience of having developed the server.exe means that you have some institutional knowledge that makes you better able to offer support - you don't have to "learn it from scratch" * you can offer upcoming features to your paid subscribers earlier than they get released in the free version * name/brand recognition is A Thing - there is some non-zero dollar value that customers will assign to the comfort and security of buying from "the real source" But I do recognize and agree that those are slim and not _necessarily_ decisive. In some cases, the differential revenue accrued by those things will be enough to continue development on the product that is otherwise given away for free; in others, it won't. A careful balancing act, to be sure!