I think it's great that it's free and open source so it's available to as many people as possible.
I don't really care about the free part though. If I could pay for Jellyfin and it would be better, I would happily do it. I pay for Infuse so I have something usable on Apple TV even though Jellyfin itself is free. I don't care if other people don't pay for it.
I would rather pool various other people's money who have the same perspective as me to allow one of the Jellyfin contributors to prioritize and perform changes in the project that I and others value, which raises the boat for all. There's no world in which I am going to learn how to contribute to Jellyfin to fix something fundamental about the Jellyfin architecture, for example. It would take years to even get buy-in from the core contributors to have that access. Maybe I could spend a few months and clean up minor UI things or something, but what's the good of that?
I see this take a lot, where a project being free / OSS means that no one should have an opinion on it or that if they don't like something, they should fix it themselves. That's literally what money is for, so I can transfer wealth for some benefit to someone who is better at something than I am, so I can spend my time doing things I'm good at. Nothing about that prevents Jellyfin from remaining FOSS but at the same time, making improvements and receiving and prioritizing community feedback.
If anyone believes Jellyfin is worth paying for or donating, I think it's possible to donate to the Jellyfin project [1].
That's still a donation and shouldn't come attached with any expectations or obligations on either party. So, it may not be the best route to influence their roadmap.
DigitalOcean & JetBrains are listed as their sponsors. If you are their customer, you can share feedback on how much you appreciate their support.
I don't really care about the free part though. If I could pay for Jellyfin and it would be better, I would happily do it. I pay for Infuse so I have something usable on Apple TV even though Jellyfin itself is free. I don't care if other people don't pay for it.
I would rather pool various other people's money who have the same perspective as me to allow one of the Jellyfin contributors to prioritize and perform changes in the project that I and others value, which raises the boat for all. There's no world in which I am going to learn how to contribute to Jellyfin to fix something fundamental about the Jellyfin architecture, for example. It would take years to even get buy-in from the core contributors to have that access. Maybe I could spend a few months and clean up minor UI things or something, but what's the good of that?
I see this take a lot, where a project being free / OSS means that no one should have an opinion on it or that if they don't like something, they should fix it themselves. That's literally what money is for, so I can transfer wealth for some benefit to someone who is better at something than I am, so I can spend my time doing things I'm good at. Nothing about that prevents Jellyfin from remaining FOSS but at the same time, making improvements and receiving and prioritizing community feedback.