Sharing Economy vs Quid Pro Quo Economy

Sometimes I wonder why people (myself included) come here to contribute scripts and provide support free of charge. I liked reading the following book review that explores the theme of sharing communities, so I decided to share it here, in case any of you also wonders about the same.

Title:

"Do you Floss?".

Excerpt:

In an increasingly remote region of cyberspace [...] a highly committed group of volunteers works to help people they’ve never met with computer problems. The striking thing about this is not that here we have people helping other people, or that they are helping people they’re never going to meet. It is that all this pro bono effort is devoted to a very peculiar end: making Microsoft’s customers happier. [...] They’re not paid by Microsoft [...] But they all work [...] to make Microsoft richer by solving its customers’ problems. [...]

To people with a certain view of human nature, this story is bizarre.
What would motivate people to give up their time to help the richest
software company in the world get richer?

Link

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