But that time is long gone and WordPress being what is it today fundamentally depends on paid labour and not free labour. It would have withered to the side like other CMSes that depended on free labour. Nearly every top contributor that we can see in the WordPress commit history was paid.
You’re mistaken friend. Just because that time is “long gone” doesn’t mean it wasn’t paramount to the success of this platform. A disproportionate amount of work towards the WP ecosystem has been unpaid.