No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This
Not limited to software but modern society has a REALLY serious entitlement problem.  (To the point where if I see a video on Reddit of someone screaming at a retail employee, it is not even surprising anymore.)<p>I’ve had free and open projects for years, with evidence of thousands of users.  Yet I could count on one hand the number of times anyone has bothered to thank me, much less donate.  I do occasionally get E-mail requests for support but sadly at least half of them have had a complaining&#x2F;entitled tone as if I am not doing every last bit of this for free.  I have had zero offers to help with development, documentation, or really anything else.  And interestingly, some of those E-mails have come from some pretty well-known large entities, be they government departments or large companies — organizations that should have more than enough resources to give a damn.<p>Sadly, it is not better in the for-pay universe.  After publishing apps, I have found that essentially <i>no one</i> will outright “pay once” for something anymore, no matter how cheap (leaving things at the insultingly-low price of $0.99 for weeks does nothing).  Similarly, people usually will not contribute even a rating to help you out, much less a review.  The E-mail&#x2F;web info links on the store have never been used by anyone to reach me.  And App Stores make it impossible to know who your customers even are, otherwise.  So a silent relationship is maintained, where random unknown people update their apps over time, continuing to benefit and all I can assume is that they are still happy or something.<p>So my conclusion after decades is this: you do the projects you like to do for your own benefit, and no one else’s.  They are résumé builders so you have something to show when looking for a corporate job that actually pays.  If anyone doesn’t like what you’ve built, you are 1000% allowed to ignore them.  If someone happens to appreciate it, that is a bonus but not a certainty.  And you must be prepared to receive no money at all from these projects, much less enough to live on.