This is a very thoughtful post, and I sympathize with the sentiment, but I don't think it's really about "open sourcing" anything. The same could be said if you spent that time building model trains, working on a car, or engaging in any other hobby.
Agreed. "Open sourcing" means you do it for free but your work benefits others. And you may have an opportunity to pass the torch to others. For hobbies you keep it to yourself. I played an instrument for many years in spare time. I enjoyed it a lot. I eventually gave up, because my life changed and many other things popped up. On reflection, I still think it was an intersting experince for all those years. But I don't feel anything for it now.
Nevertheless, the perf increases of IO devices these days are in insane. I am wondering whether and when these perf promises will materialize. We are only on PCIE 5 this year and it's not that common yet. I am wondering how fast adoptions would be, which pushes manufacturers to iterate. The thing is that at the current level of PCIE 5, a lot of softwares already need to be rewritten to take full advantages of new devices. But rewriting softwares takes time. If software iterations are slow, it's questionable if consumers will continue to pay for new generations of devices.