Across the decades of my own career in high-tech, I found that repeating the pattern of "Create …

I think part of the problem is there's too much collectivism, which makes dissent harder to do and deal with. This collectivism and excessive capitalism means Guy A sees Guy B making money by taking away features and charging for them, so Guy A does the same thing... on a massive scale. Then there's the people who come into open-source with the expectation of profit, get depressed when there is none, then feel vindicated when they sell out to VC or enshittify their projects and see more returns than their FOSS stuff. Also, I like your comment so much I immortalized it in a Nonograph: https://nonogra.ph/na-ymlu-05-06-2026 Thanks for the long read!

You're sculpting out a bit of a zietgeist that has some accuracy and nostalgia to it, but I do think there's more to it. Starting a business and selling software can be a bigger trust signal than free or open source for some kinds of things, for both individuals and businesses depending on what it is. "I don't have enough confidence in this thing to sell it", or "there might be something wrong with it and I don't want to be on the emotional hook" with actual customers to worry about it. It's not necessarily those things, but those doubts can exist. There's also a subtle rejection of patent risk in open source, as if you are less encumbered with the stress around having to research what might step on some company's toes. Companies can solve some of that risk with professional liability insurance. Realistically, I think a lot of people just don't want to run a company, getting committed to…