>It feels absurd to make a product then get paid nothing for making that product when lots of people use it.
It really shouldn't be considered absurd, especially to people on hacker news. Many software projects are used by billions of devices (eg. linux, curl, openssl), but nobody is creating websites protesting how little github pays them. Just because people use your product, doesn't mean they're willing to pay money for it. If you can't make the economics work because nobody is willing to pay for your product, or there are tons of people lining up waiting to undercut you, blaming the platform is barking up the wrong tree.
But those are the rockstars of the FOSS world, the equivalent of Taylor Swift or whatever. I doubt she or artists like her would be complaining about how she doesn't make enough money from music.
The typical way to make a living from open source is to use your work as a portfolio to get a job doing closed-source development. Then if you keep working on your open source stuff it’s either for fun or to keep your portfolio up to date for when you want to switch jobs.
I don’t think there’s a musical equivalent to that strategy.
It really shouldn't be considered absurd, especially to people on hacker news. Many software projects are used by billions of devices (eg. linux, curl, openssl), but nobody is creating websites protesting how little github pays them. Just because people use your product, doesn't mean they're willing to pay money for it. If you can't make the economics work because nobody is willing to pay for your product, or there are tons of people lining up waiting to undercut you, blaming the platform is barking up the wrong tree.