Let's be honest, 1980's was a hot time to be in software, all you needed was a pc, a garage, and million bucks for marketing, and your too could be a software entrepreneur.

but along come y2k, or year 2000, and post that all software was free, so nobody could make money, well you could do an iPhone app, or equiv, but the day of writing software and selling software was over,

Now its 2017, and people are tired of working for free (OCTAVE 25 years and nothing to show), I'm starting to see customers from +15 years ago asking for upgrades, first time in 10+ years. It shows that the free-software gig could be coming to an end.

Why should coders be poor? Why should software be free?

I remember a time that it was not, and the 1970's->1990's was a great time to be writing and selling software.