I always end up feeling like many open source projects end up being “friendlier” versions of programs or products. Friendlier in the sense that there is a stronger sense of community, finding support for problems can be more pleasant/easier, and even just the fact that the code is open for anybody to see can alieve certain concerns like privacy. It depends on the size and popularity of the project, but since open source projects are so dependent on community contributions, they can end up being even higher quality than a closed-source corperate counterpart. Development of new features, fixing bugs, etc. becomes focused around what the community things is important, and even the less important tasks can still be taken on by a sole contributor, wheras in a company they might have just fallen by the wayside due to having to prioritize money/time elsewhere.

All these benefits can also turn out to be detrimental if not handeled properly. Projects can lose focus or lack a specific vision due to there being such a hodge-podge of people trying to contribute their own things that they think is best. A closed source can be controlled much better and be more consistent. A project can still be easily abandoned as well if it loses the community behind it, rendering it basically dead if there are no contributors to provide support to users or fixes.

Some open-source projects that I have used and have impacted me are things like Wikipedia (of course), Atom text editor (especially for web design work), and Blender (a close competitor to Maya for 3D modeling and animation and such. It’s also free instead of $1.5k a year). These projects have become so much better and user-friendly than other products like them due to their open source nature, and something like Blender has even become a more stable, faster updating, and soon-to-be-more feature-rich program than its corporate counterpart. All of these are free as well which just makes it that much better.