I use Linux and tons of other open source software daily. I have published and maintain a number of open source projects, and contribute regularly to others.

I also pay for closed source software and have a few proprietary apps that I sell.

There’s a place for both models, they’re not exclusive.

As VP he most likely stands to get a decent payout from the IPO.

It’s easy to think of Reddit as a dictatorship where everyone is deathly afraid of big bad spez, but the reality is that these types of corporate structures are usually completely rotten at the top.

Let me put it another way: do you think if spez were to be run over by a bus tomorrow, anything would change?

I’ll ignore your comments about the Nazis before we Goodwin this thread, but dude, what an awful comparison.

I disagree completely.

First, I thought we’d already collectively agreed that “I’m just following orders” doesn’t cut it as an excuse.

Second, he’s a VP, and as someone in a position of leadership he’s very much an active part of the problem.

The obvious answer is “charge a reasonable price”.

Many services like AccuWeather do that, including having a limited free tier for experimentation or niche applications.

The real problem though is that the value of the data isn’t just the cost of storing and making it available - in many cases its strategic. This is why e.g. the Google Maps API gives you pre-rendered map tiles and curated results, but you don’t get access to the raw data.