When I started building the original Jottit back in 2007, I was a CS student with no kids and no mortgage to worry about. Almost 20 years later, with four children and a family to support, the question of funding looks a little different.
I was incredibly fortunate to receive initial funding from Paul Graham (I was part of the first YC batch in 2005 with Aaron Swartz, so we know each other from back then) to work fulltime on Jottit for 2 months and then another round of funding that bought me another 5 months.
The initial funding from Paul Graham will last me another 3 months. Since I no longer have startup dreams or plans of taking money from investors, this means I'll need to find some other way of sustaining Jottit.
I could take a fulltime job and work on Jottit on the weekends. Or perhaps do part-time contract work. Or - with a fair bit of luck - raise additional funding from patrons who share the vision of an open publishing infrastructure as a commons.
I don't have an answer yet. I'm figuring this out in public, one month at a time. But I think the question matters beyond just me and Jottit. The open web is still mostly being built by individuals working on single-person projects — people who believe in a true commons. If we share that belief, we need to figure out how to sustain the people doing the building. I'd love to hear how others have navigated this.