@gnu2

So what *should* creators be doing to earn a living, if they aren't a bigCorp or at the top of the popularity pyramid already?

Let's go from the angle of FOSS. Say you release some open-source software under a GPL license. Someone else forks your code, closes the source, and starts selling it for a profit- maybe with some changes that break compatibility with your version. They become wildly popular as the creator of #yourapp- and if you try to assert yourself as the original creator, they will use their earnings to sue you into silence (or maybe nobody cares, because they are all using the closed-source version at this point).

Would you feel motivated to keep plugging away at your original version that nobody cares about anymore? No harm no foul, because nothing of value was lost- right?