IMHO it’s because we have no real way to pivot with this stuff, and you said it well enough, I just want to add:

In my mind, you’re either an OSS person who “goes viral” and maybe gets picked up or a large “thank you” contrib to your “buy me a coffee” bucket.. or you’re actually trying to make a product but need to “market test” on the old (but hardly ever used anymore) “shareware” concept. Free market testing and occasional PRs is not a proper path to IPO or venture capital. It’s just that you didn’t realize it when you set out, or you did and you’re “meta gaming” the lifecycle.

With a (to be invented?) license that allows pivoting, I reckon it can be the kind of thing that happens, and is a potential known to any product with that license.

I just don’t see it being popular.