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

“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.

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.

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

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…

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.

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

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.

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

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.

How does my Strawman I invented to make my point sound better that doesn’t even slightly reflect reality 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

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.

Sex sells

Solution: Start programming naked with programming socks.

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