For me it's the freedom to set my own priorities, tell me what you want and I'll build it.

As for a sense of ownership, not a problem when you're the only dev.

I own everything that isn't the windows server and desktops.

All the Linux servers, the network, the android terminals the production software, driver terminals etc are all my responsibility.

That might work for you, you are certainly echoing a pervasive social belief, but some studies show that financial incentives for abstract tasks don’t work that well -- they can backfire and be very demotivating when it’s not obvious how to achieve the goal. And many studies show that non-cash incentives work better than cash incentives. In software, the financial reward is not what motivates many programmers.

OTOH, there are easy ways to increase the level of ownership for employees without tying it to compensation. That’s one of the ways I identify good managers from bad ones. The bad ones try very hard keep people focused on tasks the managers came up with. The good ones know how to get the employees to design the tasks, and then help the employees fit themselves into the solution so they have strong self-identity, all while making sure the right tasks are getting done.