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Comment by heyoo | Hacker News Reader

So surely, it will never make money. :(

why is that a sad face? do things have to earn money to have any worth?

It would be nice reward the author for making something that is useful, not just by patting him/her on the back. I think that is what heyoo is talking about

Creating a useful tool that becomes well known (or a de facto standard) in the community, a successful project you proudly add to your resume, can pay for itself and much more indirectly.

Not as lucrative as profiting directly from it.

I respect non open source software very much. They put hard work into it, and I have absolutely zero, zilch right to ask for its source. I am willing and happy to pay for a service if it benefits me. OSS and non-OSS can coexist. There is no need to bash on non-OSS software. It's folks like you and me, writing code, providing for the family.

Github1s, I could see myself paying $50 for a yearly fee. I would use this thing all the time.

I get the opposite vibe from the parent comment: that usefulness and worthiness is often detached from monetary reward.

How nice it would be for great work to be compensated more fairly.

def do_things_have_to_earn_money_to_have_any_worth(dev: Developer) -> bool:

    if dev.strong_financial_background():

      return False

    return True

If it doesn't make money but need to run infrastructure it's not likely to live for very long?

It can make a shit ton of money through programming job ads.

Good point. I think most people aren't aware that it costs €500 - €1000 to post a single job ad on an important platform.

Of course, the rate will be a lot lower for small companies, but with something like this you'd have perfect targeting. And you don't even need any invasive privacy tracking for targeting: Just let people buy ads on specific repos.

Also, at least in my personal experience, people really don't mind job ads. Job ads are the only ads I regularly click on, because I'm curious what companies are looking for (even though I'm not looking for a job)

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