Not everyone is blessed with such a wealthy life that can just seat and offer free beer to others.
So they choose a side job where they can still have some fun.
If that wasn't the case they would probably just be dumping remakes into iOS, Switch, PS, XBox indie stores or even doing something completely unrelated to computers.
> Not everyone is blessed with such a wealthy life that can just seat and offer free beer to others.
I understand what you're saying in principle, but I don't believe this is the case with retrocomputing or the Amiga scene. This is an expensive hobby anyway, people who are not blessed with a relatively wealthy life do not have time for retro computing. People love retro computing because they feel passionate about it and find it intellectually or aesthetically stimulating. Nobody sets out to make a game for the Amiga, the C64 or the Speccy thinking "I know, this is where the money is!". They do it primarily out of love.
I believe the issue here is a cultural thing, really. Like someone else mentioned, the Amiga community, much like the Apple community, is used to paying for things that would be free or even libre in other tech communities. (edit: this is supported by this thread from 8 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22888726, let me quote: "In my observations (also as a relative outsider), it has been like this at least from the early 1990s. Every little itty-bitty program for the Amiga cost money.")
Back when I was a kid, Amigas were pretty expensive and few people could afford them (none of my friends could). Kids without wealthy parents didn't own Amigas.
Regardless of their motivations, my overall point still stands: pricey gadgets/software for a tiny niche hobbyist platform puts up a wall, raises the barrier to entry, and discourages newcomers -- surely not the best way to "save" it!
Doing stuff out of love doesn't mean we have to offer it as free beer. UK RetroGaming magazine has plenty of new interesting games being sold for 8 and 16 bit platforms, where the authors even repurpose old cartridges, or go through the effort to produce tapes just like back in the day.
In the 80's all computers were expensive, I find it interesting that you mention Amigas only being available to wealthy families, given that in Portugal getting an Amiga 500 was definitely cheaper than most PCs.
Anyone capable of buying a computer would do so via credit anyway.
Even on MS-DOS/Windows, people are used to pay, only the UNIX communities tend to feel entitled to get stuff for free.
> Because the people charging for their work, would do something else if that wasn't the case, thus there wouldn't exist anything at all.
I don't know that this is the case for Amiga enthusiasts. They chose this not for the money, but because they love retro computing. They wouldn't be doing something else, just like a writer or an artist wouldn't. And by making their output proprietary -- and pricey! -- they are narrowing down their audience, which is the opposite of "saving" the platform.
I've seldom seen people more passionate about their hobby (note: hobby, not business) than retro computing fans.