Even on the level of individual developers, who clearly _want_ to be doing this work and are willing to suffer a fair bit to get it done under the current system. It's so common it's a joke: https://xkcd.com/2347/ . And sure, it's "thankless", we should be *nicer* to that random Nebraskan, but a few thanks aren't a systemic fix. But imagine if OSS maintainers could get a huge tax deduction, or a direct industry subsidy, for their maintenance work?