Oh come on. If you can create a better program without ever asking for donations, feel free to do so.
But I get your point: having a succesful Open Source (FLOSS) app without dono's isn't possible, you need to have some to make it work anyhow.
Maybe "many people" remember what's been going on at Mozilla over the past decade. After all, Mozilla went there before and set the example of downward slope: first donations then partnerships, first opt-in then opt-out then automatically installed addons, first "contribute to the browser" then to sideprojects/non-technical causes, etc.
A similar case could be made for Wikimedia.