You'd have to ask though, if the whole premise is so flawed, how come it has been the dramatic success it has been? There is nothing like this anywhere else in society.

The only thing coming close might academic publishing (science) and this hints to what propels open source: openness, sharing knowledge is insanely productive, it creates enormous leverage to build on each others effort.

Clearly so far we have not found ways to fairly attribute that benefit to make the whole phenomenon easily self-financing. But its not clear it cannot be done.