In reply to @delroth:delroth.net
semi-related, checking my intuition: I think "reliance on people with high-altruism utility functions" is not a linear knob - I expect that once you start reaching a certain amount of people with lower altruism, you get the people with higher altruism to leave go do something else. WDYT?

One time I was in a position to be paid to do OSS. Something I was doing before, but now I was paid, it was supposed to be the dream. It was paid like half my usual hourly rate, but it was OSS!

What ended up happening is that I felt the additional responsibility from being paid, while also feeling shitty about being paid badly. There were other issues like a too vague SoW. But now the thing I was doing with my heart before, had become a drag. It was really confusing.

My conclusion from this experiment is that if I do work, I want to be paid properly. Work is work. Don't "oh but it's OSS" me. Or I do it for free. I love giving things away, and that it's own heart reward.

This is just me of course because we all respond to incentives differently. But I had this naive conception that OSS+money would necessarily make things better, and it backfired dramatically in that case. I still think that +money can be useful, but maybe structured in different ways, like material support, or to show appreciation.