I'm pretty sure we have a problem when one of the most notable voices in the community responds to a "well, you could hire folks to implement things for you" like this:
And folks wonder why I'm on burn out leave at the moment. Like, we really need to have a serious conversation about just how much free and unpaid labour we're all relying on here. If I can't pay my rent, then I can't contribute to open source, it's that fucking simple.
I should also note that I'm not the only frequent contributor to various fediverse projects who is struggling to make ends meet. I know of at least a half dozen other independent developers who do a tonne of work in standards and figuring stuff out for the fediverse who don't have stable income from well-paid jobs to rely upon.
So my comment wasn't me asking for money from someone, but rather, just saying that there's folks that have expertise in making changes, and they could be hired to make the changes you want to see in a reasonable manner.
We cannot rely on free labour to advance the fediverse. We live in a capitalist society, so folks need money to pay their rent, buy food and frankly exist.
If you have a fediverse account, you can quote this note from your own instance. Search https://hachyderm.io/users/thisismissem/statuses/114905074508988367 on your instance and quote it. (Note that quoting is not supported in Mastodon.)
