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This whole "everything has to be a business" mentality can get pretty toxic. It's perhaps the root cause for all sorts of things like proprietary software (not inherently evil, but by definition cannot be trusted), software patents, DRM and whatnot.

A hacker who has an idea will do it regardless of whether it'll make them money or not.

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> A hacker who has an idea will do it regardless of whether it'll make them money or not.

That's exactly the motivation that drives me to create side-projects. But it's still a bummer when nobody uses them.

The point is not about money, but creating value. Hackers don't always want to create things just for flexing their technical muscles. In the end, we all want to provide value in one form or another. If no one is using your software, then it's wasted effort.

You could modify the approach outlined in the post and just verify peoples' pain-point and see if they'd be willing to just use your software instead of asking them to commit to paying for it.

Some people on this thread liken hackers to children/babies. Doing things out of fun and compulsion without thinking too much about the net result. That is hardly true (as you say)

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