"eating is for the greedy", noted.

A little side project might grow and become a chore / untenable, especially with some from the community expecting handouts without respect.

Case in point, reticulum. Also Nolan Lawson has a very good block post on it.

I don't think your position is reasonable even if I believe you just want to say that writing open source shouldn't be a main source of the income). I think it's perfectly okay to be rewarded for time, skill, effort, and a software itself.

Even if motivation isn't about making money, people still need to eat, and deal with online toxicity.

it's not about the money. for large open source projects you need to allocate time to deal with the community. for someone that just wants to put code out there that is very draining and unpleasant.

most projects won't ever reach that level though.