Comment by roenxi

> Why shouldn't people's passions, especially when they are widely useful to others, not be encouraged and turned into paying jobs?

Because there is no fair way of estimating what someone's work is worth without a free market. Sometimes it turns up weird outcomes like maintaining a critical driver being worth $0.

If someone is willing to do something for free and the marginal cost of copying the work is 0 then by simple economics they will not get paid for doing the thing. Same logic applies to having children, advocating good ideas in politics and a lot of creative work.

Besides, why should someone doing what they are passionate about entitle them to a leg up? What about someone doing plumbing and hating it? They're making more of a sacrifice for the benefit of others, they deserve more money. And if someone is adding enormous value then let them who recognise it pay for it.

Nothing wrong with people working on their passions and making money of course, but words like 'should' are suspicious. Once you get to software development, people are in a world where market forces are fair and reasonable.