Many open source projects accept donations. There's also explicitly paid-for software. What exactly do you wish for that you can't do right now?

Specifically the part where engineers get paid the same way as artists on Spotify.

So a handful will make a buttload but the vast majority won't make enough to pay rent?

Certainly that's how open source pans out.

Doesn't sound nice if it happens to us does it?

So not at all for their work and with a reverse Robin Hood model? That would be terrible for software. The way artists gets paid on streaming is a genius play at catering to the biggest artists and labels and screw over the smaller ones, especially true on Spotify with their freemium model