> I keep reading from project leaders like ESLint’s things like “if only they paid $1 each…” as if that made any economic sense at all. If they paid $1 each, you would not hand thousands let alone millions of users.
From another angle, if I gave a dollar a month to every Free Software program or library I used that month, it would cost me thousands of dollars a month. Obviously that isn't realistic. I have donated to projects before but those products need to individually make the case to me that my donation is needed. Expecting users to donate to every project they use by default just isn't realistic. Most projects won't get donations from most people most of the time; that's just the way it is. Developers should be at peace with this before they decide to personally commit themself to a project.