Disclaimer: until a couple of months ago, I was paid to work full-time on Open-Source Software (OSS) software in the Open Educational Resources (OER) space. There’s a distinct possibility that I’m biased in some way as a result. There’s also the possibility that working in OSS and OER for over four years might mean that my opinions are backed by experience. You get to decide. The symptom Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?
The biggest problem—and this isn’t limited to web development—is how it has baked exploitation into the core worldview of so many people. We use open-source software. We get paid to use open-source software. Our employers benefit, but the money never trickles down—money never trickles down. This is fine when the project in question is directly funded by a tech multinational. Less so when the project is something specialised, a little bit niche, or inventive, and therefore not financed by a gigantic corporation.
