> I've started to see 2023 as the Year of Freeloader Ousting
I'm ... oddly actually not opposed.
Things being "free" has distorted a lot of markets and ossified them--even in open source (See: GitHub, for example).
If things actually cost something, people can get paid to do them. In addition, things that cost real money don't have the same pressure to go for giant network effects in the hopes to get a lock-in monopoly. It also sidesteps the advertising pathologies.
I'm ... oddly actually not opposed.
Things being "free" has distorted a lot of markets and ossified them--even in open source (See: GitHub, for example).
If things actually cost something, people can get paid to do them. In addition, things that cost real money don't have the same pressure to go for giant network effects in the hopes to get a lock-in monopoly. It also sidesteps the advertising pathologies.
I don't see any of these things as bad.