> For members of a relatively well-paid profession earning good wages from creating software, I wonder if the reluctance to support others earning money for quality work isn’t some form of cognitive dissonance.

GP here. I agree that all software developers and maintainers need to earn an income for their work. It's just that you don't know my circumstances, my geographic location, and the constraints I have to deal with when posing such a question. Believe me when I say that I have some real constraints that cannot be surmounted on this particular front. I don't like my circumstances, but that's just how things are right now and there's nothing I can do about it.