Tragically my landlord refused my proposal to pay him in github stars :(

he's the lord of your time.

(do relate. progress on personal projects can be slow due to this kind of stuff sadly!)

Landlords are literally just lords. I don't know at what point they were rebranded.

People tell me all the time that I should just open source my project that I have spent thousands of hours developing. As if doing so would make money magically appear in my bank account.

People need to realize that leisure time - time off work, commute, chores - is paid for by their employer (as far as they're concerned). Which is to say that those of us with only a couple of hours to ourselves a day are being stiffed, no matter how much money we make. Stop letting the workaholics dictate how the rest of us live.