> What's interesting is that people who pay or people who contribute are, on average, nicer to us than the people who don't.

This should not be at all surprising. It's often mentioned on HN that you get rid of the worst customers by charging more. This is not peculiar to OSS either.

It being "free", in a certain sense, makes it invaluable—a blank canvas on which the ungrateful have the opportunity to each paint their own vision of its worth. Something priced at one dollar is worth a buck, but at zero it's priceless, so there's no specific psychological cap on the well of entitlement for a certain kind of unreflective user.

> It's the assholes who think I'm gonna put up with their crap for free that most chap my hide, and I suspect OSS is unique in just how entitled people can be for something they got for free.

Some people is entitled. Period. They have the same attitude when they pay, when they get something for free, when they are right and when they are wrong. And these people are the ones that ruin it for everyone.