Or at least the merit part of meritocracy being an overall gain for society/foss space (same thing), not individual isolated achievements/products.

With that mindset of overall benefits you do move on from strict meritocracy bcs everything is a group effort, of not just direct contributors (but obviously mostly of them) but ultimately of all stakeholders (users too).

We all need to grow, and I think, given reasonable opportuneness, we do.