The author rightfully acknowledges that "it is a decision that cost me some short term profits early on".
But I also know people and companies that were so nice and generous that people and customers learned to bleed them to figurative death. It's worth noting there might be some survivorship bias here.
I think it's possible to have a shared joy and curiosity without giving anything away.
Heck, I would argue that learning how to say "no" in a way that's honest but isn't abrasive is a skill that's critical for any person that works in a team. I'm not talking about empty platitudes, usually earnest transparency works really well.
Unfortunately these tend to be woven into tales of incompetence and failure, not being too nice. That's the bias.
When you open your house to a haggard stranger (as my in-laws did) and they turn out to be fugitive that robs them (as their guest did), they were praised for their empathy but blamed for their naievity, and never made whole.
In the corporate sphere this story appears as an abrupt shutdown when customers refuse to pay for the thing they have been accustomed to getting for free. In open source it looks like a popular project being abandoned because the maintainer has to grind elsewhere to pay the bills.
You generally won't read feel-good blog posts about these. Once again, that's the bias.
But I also know people and companies that were so nice and generous that people and customers learned to bleed them to figurative death. It's worth noting there might be some survivorship bias here.