Imagine your economy was dependent on network of roads, bridges, etc. to function. If you had any sense, you'd probably ensure those roads had people dedicated to filling the potholes, inspecting the bridges, plowing the roads, etc. and that there was some redundancy in the system so that if say a mountain pass was closed due to an avalanche, traffic could be rerouted.
Amazingly, on the internet, there are a whole host of equivalents where it is literally just one guy volunteering his time for the last several decades to fill in potholes whenever someone calls him up. Only it's more than just a bump in the road if this guy stops doing what he's doing. It's more like a major bridge falling down.
I don't know what sort of funding model would be best for ensuring that the things most critical to the security and uninterrupted functioning of globally important digital infrastructure don't just get abandoned and fall over one day, but its not what we've got at present. If the global digital economy is worth 16.5 trillion bucks, then we're currently spending less than one part in sixteen thousand in maintaining it.
Ondřej Surý deserves a fucking medal and a title of nobility and a castle or something on that level. There are a lot of people just like that who would like to be able to keep a roof over their head, food on their table and have enough help that they don't have to worry about the thankless and unglamorous work they've taken on being in vain if they get hit by a bus one day.