The thing is, free riding isn't necessarily cheaper for anyone. When you're depending on the software in question, it being underfunded might mean you're not g

The thing is, free riding isn't necessarily cheaper for anyone. When you're depending on the software in question, it being underfunded might mean you're not getting the quality and features that would pay off in multiples for you. You could be sitting on a pile of bugs, or your dependency could be abandoned at your expense. These things happen all the time in open source land and it's a tragedy. I'm not convinced that freeriding is really rational at all. I would however grant that it's both easy and lazy.