> I don't know how to square this circle. There are a lot of great dev tools made by people for free for the love of the game. But even those people need to eat.

You really don't. If people can get something for free (effectively what OSS means to the average bear these days), they will, and they really don't care if the creator/maintainer can survive. And if that creator/maintainer doesn't, the logic boils down to "what's the replacement for <insert incumbent>?"

IMO, the combination of OSS and "generous free tier" SaaS plans basically nuked the willingness to pay for software, especially dev tools. Folks are just too conditioned to expect stuff to be cheap or free nowadays. Maybe that changes long-term but shrug, who knows.

> Some tools have started making licenses that are free for individuals and startups but cost money for profitable companies.

Ive seen this as well, but at a certain point it just seems like if your code is online, someones either taking it wholesale or recreating core pieces from the spec regardless of any licensing.

Its a tough time to be building OSS if you don't have distribution solved AKA some pedigree from the before times.