← Back to context

Comment by charcircuit

16 hours ago

Many open source projects fail to find sustainable funding. If a cure is not financially viable it is not much different than the cure not existing.

4 comments

charcircuit

Reply
rpdillon  16 hours ago

So, you're not wrong.

People that work for money will want money, and ultimately can be bought.

People that work for love produce the best they can with limited resources, and are often broke.

I don't think we've found a way to bridge the gap. I've come to generally rely on work people do for love, and I contribute to them, but it's clearly not sustainable unless they have another source of income.

Anyone who solves this will produce immense value.

  • UberFly  6 hours ago

    What's to solve? Here's the way the gap is supposed to work and often does: People work for love or money on a product. Other people love the product and are happy to purchase it. This creates income for the original producer and a beneficial product for the consumer. If a product is successful and popular enough, the capitalist cycle gains momentum for both parties to continue the relationship.

    • II2II  2 hours ago

      Yet we have seen, time and time again, that those who do things for the love of money will cash out. Heck, even those who do so for the love of creating will cash out when they want to move on. While open source doesn't eliminate this possibility, at least it disincentivises it.

      While I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions, exceptions that we rarely hear about because they are smaller companies that don't monopolise our attention, it is important to realize that capitalism is just a high level theory. It says things that sound good. over a long enough time period and a large enough samples it may be roughly correct. Yet it has no value over short time periods, small samples, or when it's underlying assumptions are violated.

      That last bit is particularly important, even though it probably isn't applicable to Nova Launcher. Everything from the asymmetry of information, to anti-competitive actions of the business itself, to regulation will disrupt those assumptions.