It's a great feeling to be able to solve problems with the software that I'm using, even if what I do is minimal, it's a thing I can point to that brightens the experience.

For example, every time I use a #HashTag with unique capitalization and Mastodon doesn't correct it, I'm using code I added. It also reminds me that capitalization is used by screen readers to decide how to pronounce it. So when it's merged upstream or if people are using this fork, then it's helping people and that feels good.

Free software is important not because it's free as in beer, and not necessarily because you can change the code, but because you can use the code after you changed it, and feel increased agency over the world in which you live.