I could also grow all my own food, do all my car repairs myself, and build my own house; but I would rather pay people who specialize in those things to do them for me.
I don't want to have to learn all the code for every single open source project I use and have to try and figure out how to build new features I want; fix a nagging bug I found without breaking something else; or rewrite the documentation. I would rather pay a few bucks (along with the other users of the software) so that collectively the developers most familiar with the code can do that and be compensated for doing so. Without that incentive, the maintainer may get around to fixing your issue sometime next year, if ever.
Sure the source is open so if I REALLY, REALLY wanted to I could go dig into the unfamiliar code and try to figure out how to make it do what I want; but that just seems a little inefficient to me...but maybe that is just me.
I don't want to have to learn all the code for every single open source project I use and have to try and figure out how to build new features I want; fix a nagging bug I found without breaking something else; or rewrite the documentation. I would rather pay a few bucks (along with the other users of the software) so that collectively the developers most familiar with the code can do that and be compensated for doing so. Without that incentive, the maintainer may get around to fixing your issue sometime next year, if ever.
Sure the source is open so if I REALLY, REALLY wanted to I could go dig into the unfamiliar code and try to figure out how to make it do what I want; but that just seems a little inefficient to me...but maybe that is just me.