Ask Lemmy

Because I'm not jerkin it to Graphite Editor.

But if i want see a specific OF models big honkin bazookas, somebody has to pay them.

for every OF model earning thousands there are thousands who get close to 0 there are open source projects which earn millions in non direct way

"in some cases" yeah you're talking about a tiny percentage here, just the ones at the top. Why? Why do some sports players get paid so much? Why do some movie stars get paid so much? Society places incredibly high value on appearances. You're free to disagree on a personal level (as do I, the beauty culture is horrendous) but it's important to realize the reality of how most people think.

As for the devs, people are often broke. Years ago, the reason I first learned about open source was looking for free alternatives to word, when I found libreoffice. I had absolutely no money to spare at the time. These days, I'm in the hole again. But I give when I'm able. I try to give proportionally to my use of whatever it is, that feels fair. I make bug reports with needed relevant info, I'm learning c++ for myself but also to one day make contributions of my own.

Open source being discovered as a no-cost alternative to paid software makes it difficult to fet funding, even though that's a pillar of what makes it so great. Bit of a paradox.

The average earnings per month on onlyfans is something like $3 a month, most people doing that are not making millions, those are outliers.

I would bet AVERAGE earnings for developers are the same or higher.

Isn't that just an alt-right talking point by the likes of Andrew Tate? At least to my knowledge.

Now tiktok streamers on the other hand...

Who knows how does a YouTuber like say Ssniperwolf get millions of followers, it's baffling.

Very few OF models earn anywhere close to that.

The average OF model gets $130 a month. The top 1% of OF models get $50k a year.

The ones you're thinking of earning tens of thousands/millions a month are the top 0.1%

I am sympathetic to all the women who use OF to earn a living. To feed themselves and their kids. But there is a special place in hell for the execs and the media companies who pimp women out, steal their money, and abuse third world women deceptively as part of their business models.

I mean... People like boobs.

Solution: Start programming naked with programming socks.

How does my Strawman I invented to make my point sound better that doesn't even slightly reflect really earn thousands and in some cases millions per month, but this perfect idealist saviour complex I've invented earn less than 1000$ per month?

OP, right now

FOSS is not as sexy as tits.

If you're seriously asking that, then you need to actually look at the world and the people in it, and make more realistic expectations based on what you see. People pay significantly more time and money on what makes them feel good than what they know is good for them. It's one of the most basic obvious truths of humanity.

Sure, some people focus enough on logic or have enough willpower to do what's good for them, but when you get a huge group of people together, those individuals fade into the mindless crowd.

Humanity isn't going to suddenly do what it needs to do simply because it's necessary, no matter how much we might hope it will. Like a child who doesn't want to eat their vegetables, humanity needs an authority figure to coerce it into doing what needs to be done, whether that be a governmental body, a revolutionary, or some other figure or organization. They simply operate on their most basic desires otherwise.

You're not comparing like for like. Those who get rich from onlyfans are the exception. The average onlyfans creator makes shockingly little.

Popular open source projects bring in a lot of money. The Blender foundation had €4 million in income in 2024.

Those who make it big and become successful earn orders of magnitude more than those who don't. This is true for everything.

So your question is "why do people spend more money on sexual gratification than on being fair?"

I don't even know where to start with that one, but the question suggests extreme naivety.

Also, it's a huge myth (marketing lie) that the average OF model is making any appreciable money.

The clear answer is that developers should have their own Onlyfans channels.

This might be the dumbest question ever asked.

A free market will not value all products the same.

Sex sells

Compare those OF models to things like clawdbot getting bought by OpenAI and moltbook getting bought by Meta.

Because the developers aren't equivalent to OnlyFans models.
OnlyFans models are for-profit business owners using OnlyFans as infrastructure, not employees or volunteers.

So you'd have to compare their profits with for-profit business owners using opensource software as infrastructure.
Examples of those are Red Hat, Canonical, VMWare, Broadcom, Microsoft, Apple, etc.

You could go join only fans. Show your assets. Let some old guy or girl leer at you. Maybe let him pay you for sex. Totally your right. Has to be better than being a dev right?

Point being look at the rational and objective responses here. For years there has been the industry of sex and some people make money some are taken advantage of. Have you ever watched free porn? Someone and their body were likely taken advantage of that and you benefitted. If the answer is yes then you have pretty much invalidated your own question.

You have the right to provide your services as a dev or displaying your body. Being sanctimonious about the $$$ involved is a shallow argument.

It ain't sexy.

Life isn't fair and people aren't rewarded based on their contribution to civilization.

Because if you donate to a FOSS project you're likely not looking for the attention, adoration, and possible "maybe they'll date me" from the developer. People who pay A LOT to onlyfans models are looking for that. It's the same reason people donate to twitch streamers. They want the attention, they want the acknowledgement.

Because the FOSS projects give you everything up front whether or not you pay for it later.

Those two aren't in any way related.

Have you ever heard the saying "sex sells"?

GitHub stars don't equate to donations, of course. I use GitHub as a form of bookmark system. 🤷‍♂️

So... are there any FOSS hackers who stream themselves working on free software? But like, the focus is on them, not just the code? And like maybe they get up to get a cup of tea or do some stretching etc and you can just imagine their inner monologue going "should I break out all this code into a library, it's getting pretty big... and maybe I will need this in the future... just like I need a hug... or maybe I should open a flower shop and bake my own bread and live more in the moment" and the programmer takes a deep breath and everyone watching is confronted with a realization that they are distracting themselves from their own existential dread by watching someone else go through existential feelings.

Be the change you want to see in the world. Instead of (only) complaining about it, take action and donate a bit to your favorite FOSS projects. I do. Many more should do. I get that one of the major draws to FOSS is that you can use it mostly for free. But developers still need support. In some form or another.