alt Hacker NewsThat's not correct. Linux is free, almost all open source is, many projects, websites are done out of passion.
I contribute to open source projects and nobody "gave me something", as I did it because I wanted to make it better. Like me, there are many others. Nobody is "the product" there.
What the saying you are misrepresenting means is "carefully check free things as you may be the product". Not "free things cannot exist, you either are the product or you pay".
Linux development is paid for either directly or in-kind by companies including Red Hat, IBM, Canonical, Oracle, and others. It's free to use and mostly open source but if it existed only on passion it would be something far less than it actually is.
People need to eat and have a roof over their heads.