Nginx was compelled to move to GitHub [1].
The fact that companies request you to star them on GitHub and the stars can be bought tells you that there is a value in these stars. [2]
Now, some astute reader, who thinks the $1 trillion global advertisement market does not influence them, will also claim that they don't care about GitHub stars.
Well, that's not how the world works.
Fake stars can propel a good project to great.
A lot of people will use GitHub stars as a currency to decide the importance of certain FOSS (or even open-core) projects.
The real lock-in is in GitHub stars [3].
1 - https://blog.nginx.org/blog/nginx-open-source-moves-to-githu...