This thread had me thinking about the fact the Zorin OS offers a paid for product: Zorin OS Pro (formerly Zorin OS Ultimate).
Developers should be and must be paid for their hard work.
I am sure that Linus Torvalds had the best of intentions. He wanted Linux to be freely available to all so that all could benefit from it.
Yet, what we see from Google, Firefox, Canonical and a myriad of others is that when a product is "free", they will resort to some interesting measures to get paid.
What if (It's too late to do anything about this now; the damage is done) your Internet Search provider (Duck, Google, Bing) was an add on service on your monthly internet bill? Instead of it being "free" and collecting money through target market advertising, but was a Subscription service you opted into and paid for each month. Just like your trash bill, water bill... If it was, Google might not have swollen into the greedy corporation that Alphabet Inc. became.
Over 14 years ago, I bought a Used black leather Wallet at a garage sale. It looked like-new, though. And I paid fifty cents for it. A few weeks back, I emptied it out in order to clean lint and stuff out, normal maintenance. It still looks like new. I sit on the thing and carry it everywhere I go. I looked closely and noticed that stamped into the leather on the inside was the maker name. Georgio Armani. I could not help but laugh. I got an Armani wallet.
Man... Those things Cost Money. Yet... Here it is, maybe over fifteen years old, and still like-new. I have noticed this with Tools, Kitchen Appliances, etc. When you are not willing to Pay - You Spend More Money. Cheap Blenders break down more often that higher cost quality ones and over time, you spend more replacing the broken ones than you would ever have paid on One expensive but Quality one.
Our free products are costing us the most of all. Our collective lack of willingness to pay means we pay much more. A person that gets Free Service pays more due to the advertising they are subjected to, pays more in privacy lost, data lost and identity lost.