A number of monetisation models for open-source work have been put forward in the last decade, but none of them has been able to scale and solve the problem in a fundamental way. The reason being, open-source work is a microeconomic singularity — a paradox in capitalism that can’t be corrected with donations, cryptocurrencies, or freemium models.... See more

Eghbal writes: “The default hypothesis today is that, faced with growing demand, an open source “maintainer” - the term used to refer to the primary developer, or developers, of a software project - needs to find more contributors. It’s commonly thought that open source software is built by communities, which means that anyone can pitch in, thus... See more

But why make this point? Well, splitting the hair between profit and usage is important to measuring long-term success. If a project gets great adoption but cannot drive revenue, it will die. Some wishful thinking might argue that the community will take over, but there’s been little evidence to indicate this happens.