The real power of Free Software for me is its role in changing people's attitudes to problems. You don't have to wait for someone else to fix things for you. Not only if you are a programmer, you can fund someone else to fix it for you too. There are so many successful crowd funding campaigns demonstrating everyone contributes.
This change in perspective will help in thinking about any kind of common problems. Sadly this perspective is not widely highlighted by the community.
@praveen plus the knowledge is not lost when the company goes bust or closes down.