Note that this is the kind of reasoning that would also stop resources like wikipedia from existing. Why do for free what could be done for (good) pay instead? So it feels like you're telling people to not participate because a good payday is more important than doing good.
That reasoning might work for your dayjob (why put in effort that your employer doesn't reward?), but this is not an employment situation, that line of reasoning simply does not apply to volunteer work: these folks did not put in the work to draw a check, they put in the work to combat patent trolling. And it worked: everyone who helped won.
But then some folks even won an extra prize without any expectation of a reward beyond the one they did it for. How nice is that?
That reasoning might work for your dayjob (why put in effort that your employer doesn't reward?), but this is not an employment situation, that line of reasoning simply does not apply to volunteer work: these folks did not put in the work to draw a check, they put in the work to combat patent trolling. And it worked: everyone who helped won.
But then some folks even won an extra prize without any expectation of a reward beyond the one they did it for. How nice is that?