This paper is cheerless — gamification for good should be celebrated!

If we can make contributing to open source projects as exciting as playing Factorio or watching TikTok, that's a huge benefit to society.

And even if we don't care about the benefits to society, it's also much better for the developers — they can be part of a community, know they're making an impact on the world, potentially get a better job through their passion.

Is there a potential downside, that people build fewer human connections, spend less time with their family, delay finding a partner — sure. But is it more of a risk than with video games or their job? I can't see how we can draw that conclusion.

So let's give contributors more status, and if that means more badges on GitHub, great.