One more thing: if it is free, I as a maintainer am not forced to give support. If I care to ignore a feature request or a bug report, it is completely out of my own free will. As long as I am motivated to do maintenance, I will pick up on every report and see if "it" can be done or fixed. Once I lose interest, I can simply abandon the project and leave. It is open source, anyone else who cares can pick up after me.

Once people start paying for the software, they do expect support, even if I do not have time or motivation. I simply do not want that.

By doing thorough maintenance and making robust software available, I know that others are helped. They see that this all works and do the same. When they do I am helped too, and we all make eachothers lives easier and more fun. Someone of course has to start this process, but that was done before I even connected to the internet.