Indeed. The problem arises from a two step:
1. Free Software / Open Source are Good and True by assertion. There is no God but source code, and Stallman is its prophet. 2. Questions whose answers tend to contradict point 1., such as “Gee, the world runs on Python — as wonderful as job as Guido and his inner circle have done, is it time to ask what an ideal management structure for a technology worth (tens? hundreds? of) billions of dollars might be?” are not welcome — are largely not asked.
People get what they pay for.
(There could be a long discussion here about expectations placed on unpaid maintainers, and what the real purpose of Open Source / Free Software is beyond merely being zero cost at the point of use, but those tend to just go round forever. There's even a paid alternative to Jellyfin: Plex.)
We can have a business model. I can pay the developer to prioritize my PR if I consider it worthy enough that it solves my pain point. Companies do that as I have heard. There could be a Groupon like model where multiple people facing the issue can pool the money for prioritization.