Generally speaking, that's how hobbies work. You do them for fun or enrichment and do something else for money. People who try to turn hobbies into a day job seem to get this weird idea that they're somehow critical to the hobby when in fact they're just hyper focused on getting attention and crowding out actually sincere people so they can sell stuff.

e.g. this thread. Here you have people making software for themselves to host their own videos without being beholden to the likes of Google. Absolutely nothing to do with OP. So why is OP criticising them? Where in the README does this free software project discuss monetization (other than mentioning it's ad-free)? Why is the topic even slightly germane?

If it's tricky for people in software engineering (those still holding a job continue to have big salaries compared to most other industries) to have hobbies they are willing to pay for themselves, it's probably them finding excuses instead or living beyond their means.

Nope, there are still people doing this stuff to share what they are excited about, and they will continue to be people like that.

Economy has nothing to do with this — as mentioned, a lot of this comes out of university students and low rung staff, and they were never best paid.