Sure, but I'm saying compare it to something like Oracle (what other commercial software is still out there? I don't know). What does a company pay annually for Oracle (expressed per engineer for comparison)?
Anecdotally, $2,000 per user per year would be a really expensive SaaS app (right?). Not exactly apples to apples but so far I think $2,000/user/yr is a good ballpark for open source value. Note also that the blog post indicates a 50% markdown in labor value because companies pay a tax to direct employee time, so people should expect to get paid less when working self-determinedly on open source.
https://wintelguy.com/oracle-db-licensing-calc.pl
https://www.orskl.com/what-is-the-cost-of-oracle-database-li...