Or, worse IMHO is that developers would gladly pay if they had a stipend card but trying to convince your manager, or their manager, or procurement, that it really would make your life $20/mo better can be infuriating

That's why I love the AWS Marketplace: it can often hide "quality of life" services in the AWS bill, which almost never gets the same level of pushback as does "please, sire, may I have $10/mo?"

Yes, the logical next step for this site is to add escrow.

When that happens, I'll re-consider signing up for it. At the moment, I can't justify $30 for access to what could be, admittedly, a lot of pie in the sky.