> For a proper way this would work, you the user would contribute your time for those features so you don't overburden the maintainer, but people like you won't and so this is where we're at.
Sure, if you're up front and honest from the beginning then some users will do that, the majority are likely to go for other offerings which don't suffer this problem. Vanishingly few users are going to be cool with features disappearing and then reappearing later on with a price tag attached, which is the scenario we're talking about.
In reality, 99.9% of the users are going to be using whatever free thing is available and your project will live for just about as long as you personally care about it. Rightly or wrongly, the maintainer's work/life balance isn't on the forefront of your mind when you're looking at npm packages, no amount of grandstanding will change that.
Sure so the maintainers set the boundary themselves.
I dont know what world you live in where you can be entitled to something you dont pay or contribute to.
They can do whatever they want to ensure their project works and frankly once again the projects dont need people like you. You’re not that important or special at all, certainly less so than the people building things. Like I get that you really think you are it’s dripping from your comments, but you’re not.
And to be clear this was a discussion among their community it wasnt a sudden thing so your entire premise is wrong.
Sure, if you're up front and honest from the beginning then some users will do that, the majority are likely to go for other offerings which don't suffer this problem. Vanishingly few users are going to be cool with features disappearing and then reappearing later on with a price tag attached, which is the scenario we're talking about.
In reality, 99.9% of the users are going to be using whatever free thing is available and your project will live for just about as long as you personally care about it. Rightly or wrongly, the maintainer's work/life balance isn't on the forefront of your mind when you're looking at npm packages, no amount of grandstanding will change that.