And further, payments make a market. If someone gives their stuff away for free, they prevent competition from arising.
They can therefore more-easily maintain a monopoly and keep the users as a captured audience, while the quality declines.
This is how communism works, after all. Who will build a car, when someone else is giving them away, for free?
Foss development can be pure fun. Just scratching an itch.
Making it a consumer product takes dedication... And responsibility 😂
What you're saying kinda doesn't make sense.
It's like you wish BitTorrent was never created so people could charge money for what it does, or you hope no more free open source projects like it will be created so future plans can be expected to make money without competing with freeware.
Generally the "Who will build a car, when someone else is giving them away, for free?" is true, but things can get so bad that people will pay. Canada gives away healthcare for free, but it is so poor and wait times are so long that well-to-do Canadians frequently travel to the US and pay out-of-pocket for treatment for serious conditions. Some years ago, their head of the Department of Health (or whatever they call it in Canada) flew to the US for his treatments. When people found out, there was a big stink.
Yes, a handful of people can escape the Free Shit Orgy trap, and eventually the whole thing collapses under its own idiocy, but I don't know why we should ever build such a trap.
