Looking at the 2019 State of JavaScript report, something stands out: Money apparently can’t buy everything. Or, at least, not every major front-end and back-end programming framework is sponsored by a big company. Sure, we have Google to thank for Angular, and Facebook gets credit for React, but what about Vue.js? Or Gatsby? Or Next.js?
While these (and other) open source projects do seem to suggest a future without Big Corps shoveling Big Money into open source, the reality is a bit more nuanced. For the developers looking to pay their way through open source, however, reality isn’t nuanced at all. For every Vue.js founder Evan You making $16,000 per month with Patreon contributions, there are thousands of developers struggling to scrape together $16 for the important open source work they’re doing.