There are strong points, but I feel like they sharpen the details and don't address the main argument. For example, it's true there are exceptions regarding income but many haven't cashed in and I doubt Torvalds and Stallman did their creative work, at least initially, looking for a big payoff. And there are many more examples, most scientists for instance.
> With so much free software out there, why would a business want to hire an actual engineer when they can hire a software mechanic (at a much lower wage)? ... Why are we actively trying to take away a very good way for social mobility?
On one hand, that's a very good point. On the other, it's hypocritical for our industry to complain about jobs lost to efficiencies; much of what the IT industry does is replace human labor with computers or 'disrupt' whole industries. That's the 'creative destruction' of the free market, finding more productive solutions and shifting now-unneeded resources to something new. Should we maintain IP barriers so that engineers can be paid to create something that already exists?
> It already happened in the music industry. Before the explosion of piracy, an indy artist could make a living selling music.
Agreed, but before the explosion of recording technology, indie artists made money from performances. The technology changed then, now has changed again, and will change yet again. The business model built on last generation's tech isn't sacrosanct.
I don't mean to be callous about people's jobs or suggest I have the answers, but I think we can do much better than graft the old IP system onto the new technology.