I'm not arguing against a base level of empathy and care for maintainers.

I'm arguing FOR a base level of empathy and care FROM maintainers WHO CHOOSE to build for-profit products in the open, and that empathy for all parties should be the base expectation from a healthy community, rather than the narcissistic view of "nobody owes their communities anything, regardless of context".

The narssisist view leads to the behaviour of Minio, Bambu, etc becoming an accepted norm; to the abuse, exploitation, and deterioration of open source communities by for-profit orgs.