> Normal people aren't constantly engaging in a fight for survival in every aspect of their lives, and I don't think it's a good thing to ask them to. We should expect the people we deal with to be acting in good faith. I think it would be bad actually if I had to consider if you're going to make money off of my idea when talking to you.

I agree with you, if we're talking about people acting as individual humans collaborating together on FOSS.

But this is really about a for-profit corporation acting in its own interests, using people to do its "deeds". Then I think it makes a lot of sense to treat any "Hey, could we chat to you about your project?" with a great deal of skepticism, because they have a goal with that conversation, it it's unlikely to align with your own goals, in most cases.

Ultimately, people from that corporation is reaching out to you because there is a potential/perceived benefit coming out of that conversation that they want to have with you. If it isn't extremely clear to you what that exact benefit is, I'd say the smart thing to do is being cautious, to avoid situations like this which happen from time to time it seems.

> We should have strong and durable protections against those megacorps in other ways

like what? continue to use (pay) for their products and wait for regulations coming from lobbyist countries? /s