Though the people who follow this model kind of give me the impression that they don’t take it seriously like they should, it’s not really work to them, they just see it as screwing around since they’re taking the “fun” and “interesting” path over the practical and efficient path.

To be fair: No one is under any obligation to take coding “seriously like they should” unless they are under contract with at least a living wage. There is such thing as coding as a hobby, or coding to relax, and ofc coding to scratch your own itch; that freedom to code regardless of the resulting product is half of the entire point of free software.