this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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I would say the motivation to create is simply to create. Dwarf Fortress authors allowed donations but until they had health issues did not outright sell the game. Even now it's optional though as only the UI is sold, base game is still free.
I would argue that if your motivation to do anything is money, then whatever you create is always going to be inferior.
It obviously isn't true that people motivated by money build inferior products... There may be a loophole here where you can claim that the absolute best of a category might be built by an individual driven only by the desire to create, but I feel like that is a shitty argument. I would argue that the vast majority of quality products are only produced by those who seek monetary compensation.
I would argue the opposite, in that monetary compensation enables the creator to put in the time and effort required to make a product with high quality. Without monetary support in a capitalist system, they are forced to spend their time doing other meaningless work to eat, and can't spend the time they want on the project their passionate about.
Looking at the current state of Hollywood, the drive to make a profit is actually ruining movies for me in the past 5 years. Full of bad writing and old remakes of remakes trying to get money from old IP. Nothing new or original has been written for some time and it's getting old.
Okay, I would say my argument probably breaks down at small individual projects. For larger corporations though I think it's still stands true. Anyone who's worked in JIRA is probably familiar with the status "Won't Fix". For essentially any bug incoming you would weigh the user impact versus the revenue impact. You prioritize based on severity but also prioritize based on revenue. Your Sprint cycles by very nature can't be oriented to producing the best possible product if the best possible product is only what makes you the most money.
EDIT: I would also say that this largely depends on how you define what a good product is. Is a good product one that makes you a lot of money? Is a good product one that is high functioning and provides good use?