Lets say, I am a cabinet maker and good with wood working. My father has a woodworking shop, therefore I understand it somewhat and can draw a parallel with it.
I (in this hypothetical example), as an industrious and creative self made and self taught wood worker, have some extra land, and think one day, hey, wouldn't it be nice to clean it off and set up a little park with it, build some swingsets and see saws and jungle gyms and benches and other sorts of playground things, for my kids to use, for all the kids in the neighborhood to use, and for the enjoyment of all. I like parks, they are nice, they are fun to play and relax in, they add to the community, I and my kids can play in it and anyone else as well... it can handle a lot of folks, and everyone can enjoy it. I'll build it all pretty sturdy so it can take a lot of use, and how much work can it take to fix anything thats broken every now and then.
Within a short time, idiots come in, and they start trashing and tearing up the equipment. They litter everywhere; crack dealers start hanging out in my park; winos are whizzing on my swings; retarded teenagers tear off the trash cans and dump trash everywhere; some idiot with a motorbike even did donuts in the park... some jokers even somehow managed to uproot the benches from their fixtures and made off with them. Prostitutes are walking around trying to turn tricks, and some bums are going around trying to recruit for thier gangs putting up spam flyers on everything with glue. A couple of people walk into my park and start insulting me and my kids out of the blue for no reason at all, while I am standing in my own park on my own land while I am sitting on equipment I built minding my own business! While I'm wearing my blue collar shirt on with my name on the label of all things, which is the same name on the park. It says so right at the park entrance, CHOPPERGIRL's PARK. I don't say a thing, I let them say their piece before I kick their ass right out of my park for good... but I'm wondering to myself, are these people completly daft?
Anyway, so I'm like... what the EFFFing hell! I put up a sign, asking for everyone who visits to put their trash in the trash can, not tear up things, maybe even pick up more trash then they drop, or volunteer to help out clean and police the park. I build a donation box to ask for people to donate, so that I can simply buy more wood to build more awesome equipment to play on. Not for my labor or time mind you, but simply for the raw materials (I don't need much, I use a lot of recyced items) and the lightning bill to keep the park lighted at night. Nothing to great to ask I think. So I put up this sign, and I clean up the park all by myself and fix everything that gets stolen or hauled away. Everybody tells me how great it is. Everybody loves it. Everyone tells me how much my park roxors compared to other parks. At some hours other parks are completely empty, while mine is full.
In fact, my park stays full all the time, because I am serious about my craft and building the most awesomemest fun toys I possibly can. I'm not arrogant about it, I'm really not, I just really enjoy building the best I possibly can. Though I am not a religous one, I believe that if there is a god, us humans aspire to be as god and create. That is our ultimate purpose in life, that is what humans do. We create. You see it all over the planet, everywhere, everything that humans have created. We love to do it. I love to do it. I love to do it well. Its amazing. It gives you a sense of accomplishment and makes you feel like you've achieved some little victory and mastered one more skill
And yet, as far as my park goes, nobody does a thing to help. People don't put trash in the trash cans, they drop it right where they stand. Six months go by, and not a single donation. I do it all myself, and I pick up all the trash myself. I pay for it all, I fix it all, I police it all when I can, and I dream up new cool things on my sketchpad to build in my shop and add to the park.
So in my frustration about all this, I post a rant to DIGG about all these spoilt ass park goers who want it all for free, and flame me back I should of never set up an open park in the first place and then expect to get a damn dime in return. They have a thousand things they have to waste their money on, but not even a dime towards a bag of nails for me to fix and repair park equipment. So I'm thinking, to hell with you son of a bitches, watch me pull the plug on this bitch so fast and close it down and that is that.
Then one guy donates. Yes, he donates a token amount, from seeing my rant on DIGG. Of the thousands of players that trounce through my server, he's never even played BF2142 at all, he's of all things, a WOW gamer! Not one of my BF2142 players, no, a total stranger and reader on Digg, a World of Warcraft player! Oh, the irony. Wow, does that make my players look like a sorry lot. The rest of the poeple on Digg, well, just flame and bitch that I'm some stuck up prick to think I can build a park and expect the world to help pay for it. That really helps my park. Thanks!
His donation of course is a tiny drop in the bucket that will do next to nothing, but if even half my players donated a 20th of his tiny pittance (like, 20 cents each, half the cost of a coke), I could not only pay the bills on the server, I could set up 4 more most excellent servers as well (a full game server, some free BF2 servers, all kinds of cool things). Guess what, its never going to happen. Not in my life time.