Also, more of your software was likely to be from a vendor, not FOSS you paid $0 for. That means phone or even in-person support, in addition to a real manual, for stuff like your IDE, OS, and compiler.
I dunno about everyone else, but a lot of my Googling that couldn't be replaced by a simple reference manual for the language(s) I'm using is environment bullshit. It's a result of using a giant, complex, mostly-free build & deployment toolchain held together by duct tape. It's because in a given day I might interact with dozens of programs, services, config tools, and daemons, all in a constant state of flux, and for many of which I have no paid support channel. A good percentage of my Googling is just confirming or disconfirming that the thing I'm using is actually broken (per se or in its interaction, at version X, with version Y of some other thing) in some way that it appears to be broken. This kind of stuff is only documented in bug trackers and forum (Stackoverflow) posts.
If you're developing mainframe software in 1985, or a Turbo Pascal desktop program in 1995, that's a whole different story. Slower-moving, fewer pieces, and you've got someone to call (because you're paying them, or you already paid them and they want to keep your future business) for damn near every piece of hardware or software you use every day.
I agree with you. You are first person among commenters here that see this. Using free software is hard. There is a little of packages well documented. Plenty of packages has multiple versions not compatible with themselves. Sometimes reading documentations reveals that package API is not providing. Among worst things is minimum reproducible repository when one is working on a proprietary software based on Foss. I never could prepare such example to show reported bug because I could not share code or the bug related on such big part of code that it was impossible to me. That is why I really start to hate JavaScript environment and the business model based on opensource... If owner has no money to buy ready solutions it's gets hard after few years of development to be content of code base one is developing (that is how I feel now, and I'm looking for another job)
