In reply to Otto.

That's easy to say when you don't support WordPress for a living, but instead, you're provided a living to support WordPress.

The lack of guaranteed living is why these solvable issues exist and will continue to exist until plugin/theme developers are thrown a bone or two. From where I'm standing, it seems Audrey's chewing all the flesh off those bones, and stashing them in a chained mithril bag thereafter. There's a reason Apple is under scrutiny for its monopolistic approach around the App Store, and I'm saddened that the WP Governance Project went down under.

As for community-generated reviews, articles, and blog posts about our "free" work... well, they don't spawn from nothing. They've proven to come from those annoying notifications (look at how Yoast SEO went from 2.4 stars to 4.9). And, sometimes, there's a lot of cash involved behind the scenes. I've encountered this, I've reported this, I've been ignored for this. It's anti-competitive, it's sorely illegal in North America and the EU, and it's somehow condoned by W.org's plugin repo maintainers. The community doesn't decide itself, they're decided for.

WordPress isn't a FOSS baby anymore; it's a heavily monetized platform. Real people with real families eating real food who are living in the real capitalistic world who have to pay for real internet and real electricity really need to get paid with real cash to support WordPress. WordPress owes its life to them, and then some.