>If you don’t like how we operate our project, go run your own shadow library! All our code and data are open source, so nothing is stopping you. ;)
Or be more specific what doesn't sit right with you.
What's not right with me, is that a donation is different from buying something, yet here it seems mixed in together.
The whole site is illegal anyway. Is there a legal difference in "donating" and getting benefits. And "buying" for benefits, when the benefits are illegal in both cases?
For me (not in the US), donating have a different meaning than buying. When I buy, I become a customer and it establish a business relation and the organization owe me a bunch of things (the product/the service, my customer rights …).
When I donate, it’s mainly to support a cause and I know I’m not tied to anything in return. Even if there are promised perks, the structure doesn’t owe me anything, the perk is just a mean to thank me for my donation.
Again, it’s not the legal definition from my country (or maybe, I really don’t know), it’s just what those words means culturally here.
Also, using « buy » which implies a business relationship (even an illegal one) when the project is explicitly about freeing knowledge from businesses would be pretty ironic.
Small perks usually and I am critical of those as well, as they blurry the line. But here it rather looks like a usual subscription model to buy.
Which side seems childish?