We could re-imagine this as a potluck I suppose. If you decide to bring nothing, you can’t really complain if the food is awful.
They ran a fund raiser event (not unlike a fun run) twice a year and it was eye opening how many hands it took to make a good idea into one people invited their friends to next year. I volunteered a couple years at a couple of events and I know I worked harder those two days than I did when I participated, and not on the tasks I expected to be challenging. High school movie parties fall apart because it's all anarchy, and no self control. There's a lot that goes into making a soiree a success instead of a disaster.
My partner years ago stopped hosting parties because we were both ragged by the time people arrived, and there was always something we worked hard on that went unnoticed. Sometimes necessary, other times just a bad call on our part. Now we farm out the work a bit more, but even a potluck has key dishes and can fail if everyone guesses wrong. But if you pay close enough attention to a potluck, for many families grandma's dishes are the keystone that holds it together. She's seen some shit. She knows what's what.
I used to bring an Igloo water dispenser to a volunteer group because the group I was in in high school worried a lot about people injuring themselves in the heat. They had meetings every year before the events to refresh people. Heat exhaustion is scary, even dangerous, but heat stroke is life-altering. For the volunteer group, I think maybe five of us cared enough to bring fluids, and while my extra didn't always get used, I'm absolutely sure that one of us saved somebody. And if one of the other five had been sick, or had a wedding, then mine wouldn't have been backup. It's not hard to bring water, but someone has to do it. Unfailingly.
The rest of the group would of course care if someone got sick, but only to prevent it happening a second time. When you do something right the first time, nobody appreciates how hard it was.
Gift giving inherently involves trust from the recipient. And there's no transaction, so it's inherently consequentialist.
As an edge case, consider a CLI that solves a trivial problem but also turns the computer into a space heater via an always-on service. It will rightfully damage the author's reputation with the users and they'll avoid using that person's code again, but they won't sue of course.
This notion that people don’t “have to use OSS” is demonstrably false. As is the “build a better mousetrap” aphorism that was so common during the dot com bubble. It can be true when there is one OSS tool in a space, but every tool eventually becomes a monopoly, or part of an oligarchy. There is not space in a grocery store for an infinite variety of soda (though by god do they try). There are many you will never have heard of because the noise ratio has climbed too high. Every. Single. Solution is an opportunity cost.
Same is if all of my friends try to throw a party in the same week. Nobody is going to all of them, and most people are only going to one. Some might not go to any for fear of picking wrong, and just opt out and do their own thing. If they go to the worst one then they missed out on a good time. That is partially on the host, yes. I don’t owe you an amazing time, but I owe you a not awful one.
I can’t sell a tool that minifies JavaScript files. That is a comoditized space. If all the tools suck? I’m entitled to be a little upset about it, and who are you to tell me otherwise? DevEx matters and many people still don’t try, at all.