The rationale from the author of the package who adding advertising is enlightening and definitely worth reading. https://feross.org/funding-experiment-recap/
I would love to find a way to help maintainers capture at least a bit of the value we create so that we can happily continue to write new features, fix bugs, answer user questions, improve documentation, and release innovative new software.
But after it was received badly, he switches to:
Folks who contribute nothing don’t get a seat at the table. Rich Hickey said it best in Open Source is Not About You:
Which seems contrary. Rich Hickey’s post is that open source is built for oneself (one person or one company) and then released to the world in whatever state it was used internally. Other people aren't paying, so they don't get a say. The opening position is that open source is created and maintained for the benefit of others.
It can be either, neither, or both for different projects, sure, but to suggest that people take up maintaining unseen infrastructure code so that they can answer user questions and write documentation and code new features to help people and also don’t no have to listen to anything those people say because it’s done for one’s self and not about those people at all.. which is it?
People who tidy the commons for the council are employees, and do what they're told. People who tidy the commons of their on volunteer effort get to choose what to do but don't get to stick a price tag on it. If you do it for yourself on your terms, you don’t get anyone’s money. If you do it for others and want their money, it’s a job but you have to be controlled by what they want because it’s a job.
If you do it for guilt and charity, who gets to thrive off charity work in other fields?
If you went to a local park and found someone had picked some poison ivy, and left an advert there instead, would you approve?