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Why would anyone pay for business class airline tickets instead of (subsidized) coach? They both get to the destination at the same time!



If you want people to travel (because them travelling is good for business) you probably don’t want them to be stiff and unproductive after a long flight, and you don’t want to make the experience so unpleasant that they won’t want to travel.


That's a good question! However I am not sure what that has to do with what I am saying? People pay for over priced luxury goods all the time. There are psychological reasons for that (signaling wealth among other things).


Not just psychological but convenience, reliability and status all of which can apply to oss consulting/patronage


If you look at the commenter's other messages, you seem very much to be making their point for them. The thing that they are advocating for is what you seem to be trying to, through snark, give them an education on.

No one makes coach tickets available for free and then asks people to pay after the fact. Certainly no one would do that and then complain that the system is broken because nobody is paying. People, on the whole, do not behave in a way that's compatible with that kind of thing, and the expected outcome there matches the outcome that we see today with (un)-sustainable open source.


The point is that sometimes, profit isn't the only priority, so one may choose to pay even if they didn't have to.


My point is that the evidence is in and clearly companies/people don't do that. And some OSS maintainers then get all upset and throw their toys around because people don't behave as they expect. My answer is: Grow up. Accept the world as it is. And act accordingly.




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