In my case, I already have PC, a laptop and a gaming handheld, all running Linux, but I still want to buy a Steam Machine just to support Valve, and also to increase the market share statistics - even if it's just by one count. We need to buy these to show the world that there is a market for Linux gaming devices, and who knows, maybe some day the market will grow big enough for publishers like Epic to admit they can no longer ignore Linux.

The sentiment that "Linux is only free if your time has no value" may not have aged well, but the wisdom behind that remains. When you're fifteen years old and have all the time in the world, the idea of charging people money for your expertise and time, and then using that money to pay for goods and services, is often misunderstood. I didn't understand shit about money or business or people at that age, and I'm sure I'll look back at me now in twenty years and also see how stupid I am being. At the root of it, though, is that we could do a better job of teaching the kids how the world works. If people want to build it themselves, more power to them. When they come to understand the exchange of money for (someone else's) time, so they don't have to spend the time learning it themselves, they'll be a little less salty.