I agree, but there are two obstacles to actually getting paid:
- The amount you can be paid for any sort of work has a range. The ceiling of the range is the value you added, the floor of the range is how expensive it would be to get someone else to do it. Since in open source the competition costs zero, this sets a very low floor for how much you can charge.
- Wanting to be paid is indeed reasonable, but just wanting it is often not enough when it comes to companies. There will be contracts involved, minimum time commitments, purchasing processes if the company is big enough, etc. Navigating all that is what will turn open source back into a job, if you really make work of getting paid for it.
> Since in open source the competition costs zero, this sets a very low floor for how much you can charge.
The competition? Does that mean copying the same software without paying it is competing against paying for it? Like how movie piracy competes against DVDs, or not tipping competes against tipping?
I meant it more in the sense of "there are 5 different logging libraries for the language I use, will I use the one that charges money or one of the 4 that don't?".
- The amount you can be paid for any sort of work has a range. The ceiling of the range is the value you added, the floor of the range is how expensive it would be to get someone else to do it. Since in open source the competition costs zero, this sets a very low floor for how much you can charge.
- Wanting to be paid is indeed reasonable, but just wanting it is often not enough when it comes to companies. There will be contracts involved, minimum time commitments, purchasing processes if the company is big enough, etc. Navigating all that is what will turn open source back into a job, if you really make work of getting paid for it.