GitHub Sponsors

The way I see it, it isn't an alternative to Open Collective that they're after. They've seen that it's fashionable for people to give money based on parasocial interaction. It's sort of like gambling, where there's a dopamine hit, but where the behavior doesn't get you meaningfully more involved with the community, whether it be Twitch, YouTube, or Facebook (just like gambling doesn't make you wealthier). I fell into that trap with Twitch for a while but cancelled all my subscriptions after realizing that my rationalizations for subscribing didn't hold up, and the real reason was the excitement of feeling like I was hanging out with a chess champion. I think there will probably be backlash after some stories of people spending more they can afford on Twitch subscriptions get out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction

It is nice to see people make money doing what they love, but I wonder how much they can really make if people aren't influenced by parasocial interaction.

The motivation for Open Collective of giving back to say thanks is a much more pure one than paying $5/mo on Twitch, of which Amazon gets a huge cut, to get a sense of belonging bolstered by custom emoji and subscriber-only programming.

> Do companies use GitHub sponsorships to judge the health of dependencies? Will they create budgets to support their dependencies systematically?

In my past I've worked with multiple places that absolutely loved open-source. Because to them it was "free". Something they could use in their products and then charge customers for. Often these opportunistic parasites would never contribute anything back; going out of their way to work around missing features or bugs rather than trying to fix or contribute towards the codebase.

I doubt that these companies now, despite depending on such OS, would pay paying money/contribute; no matter how administratively trivial it became.

This is a brilliant idea whose time has come, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

I'm especially looking forward to seeing how it plays in the corporate arena; I'd love to see businesses that depend on open source every day (that is, all of them) throwing what is just pocket change to them at projects enabling their business. I hope you're planning on encouraging this behavior!

I think that whole article is a pretty shallow take, accusing Patreon of things that are not Patreon's fault (and I say this as someone who thinks Patreon is shady).

Yes, people who make some stuff that takes a lot of time and effort might not get a lot of money on Patreon. But you know what? They're doing what everybody else is doing.

I feel that nowadays everything want to think of themselves as "creators". They'll create a few photos, some drawings, put it out there, and expect to get paid.

Maybe it's just my 3rd-world-country upbringing, but I think that's a BS expectation. Real world living is tougher than that; the online public is already drowning in "creative" content, and producing more of the same is not going to give you an income.

Some of these people might be pretty talented, but that's not enough. If you're simply doing what everybody is doing and bringing nothing of actual value to your sponsors, there's not much you'll get back. Spending 16 hours a day doing basket weaving and posting it on YouTube is not worth much.

This is a similar picture of what happens on Twitch, or Instagram. Everybody thinks they can be a successful streamer, or an influencer. The reality is, just a tiny percentage of people make money doing that, either by sheer luck, some almighty external influence, or because of a niche interest they seem to fill. This is not Twitch, or Instagram's fault either.

I applaud GitHub because this is a way for people to almost passively support developers they want to. I know there's plenty of devs whom I've benefitted from their work. I'd loved to have a way to support them, even if just a little bit.

I don't think most devs would expect to become professional-code-warriors-for-sponsors. That's the wrong rabbit to _chase_. But having a bit of an extra income for a beer or tea or two on some OS project they work on is nice.

The best part of open-source is that draws in people who are focused on long-term benefits instead of short-term profit. Contributing to open-source projects teaches you how to write better code, how to work well with other developers and how to communicate your ideas effectively. It also gives you a network of other super smart people who can open all sorts of doors for you once you earn their respect.

Money is a funny thing. Introducing money into something that you were previously doing out of passion completely changes the dynamic. Take sex for example.

I like that Github Sponsors seems to be focused on supporting the developer for their ongoing efforts instead of being too transactional. Other companies have tried incentivizing specific features or bug fixes but they tend to draw in mercenaries who do the bare minimum to get the reward. This seems like a much better way to go.

I'm impressed by the way Github are rolling this out. It will be interesting to watch how it changes the nature of open-source.