@Miroslav Glavic - I think you undervalue the price of a good plugin. Premium themes go easily for $80 each. You saying you've donated $80 in the past five years kind of proves one of the points of the post, that donations are NOT a sustainable, regular income for plugin developers. As a WordPress user you are not entitled to anything, whether it be free support, plugins, or themes. Just because that has been the norm doesn't mean you should take it for granted.

I do custom plugins for individuals and business all the time. I've done pretty in-depth custom plugins that peaked over $1,000. Obviously that price is for custom development and not for a widely distributed plugin, but just to put things into perspective.