@ruihildt Great take on it.
As an aside: There's other ways to contribute towards open-source, than with code or money.
Just using it and reporting issues and feature suggestions is also free labour, that closed-source projects would have to pay for, same for security-testing.
The way I see it is, I pay for things with my time, attention, faith, and opportunity-cost, and risk-taking. If I was making money from something, then I also pay with money.
There's many ways to be a free user and benefit a project, this whole community is also a great example of that symbiotic relationship.