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Why don't you accept donations?

github.com

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Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#111

Post by sergiotapia »

binwiederhier wrote: post #67
approxim8ion wrote: post #3

I can't think of too many pieces of software that have improved my life as significantly as uBlock Origin in the last decade. It's been an absolute godsend.

I have never used an ad blocker and have resisted installing it many times. My thinking always was: I'd rather have a web with ads than a web in which I have to pay for content and sign up to 800 different websites with 800 different accounts. A website that I've frequented a lot, the German news website spiegel.de, has converted to pay only mostly, and i now can't use it anymore. I am not saying that's the fault of…

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.

– Banksy

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#112

Post by 8note »

gus_massa wrote: post #93
nocturnial wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite viewpoint about ads. I don't think we should reward a business model which relies on the premise that humans like to watch ads. I never had someone tell me to drive slower because they wanted to take a closer look at a billboard. Never had I had to rewind a video because someone missed an ad. etc... etc... Let's be honest. If someone told you to do any of the above things regularly and consistentl…

Nobody thinks that people wants to watch ads. The premise is that people hates opening their wallet more than what they hate watching an ad.

I thought the premise is that you're predisposed to pay attention to ads, whether you enjoy it or not

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#113

Post by sverhagen »

TylerE wrote: post #104
flatiron wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t install anything on my work computer that I can’t say 100% is used for work so I could never justify uBlock. It does make a HUGE difference. The web without it is a giant mess.

It's easy to justify as a security measure, given the amount of malicious ads trying to serve up exploits.

Maybe they don't browse the web either, I mean... unless it's 100% justified for work...

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#114

Post by analog31 »

binwiederhier wrote: post #67
approxim8ion wrote: post #3

I can't think of too many pieces of software that have improved my life as significantly as uBlock Origin in the last decade. It's been an absolute godsend.

I have never used an ad blocker and have resisted installing it many times. My thinking always was: I'd rather have a web with ads than a web in which I have to pay for content and sign up to 800 different websites with 800 different accounts. A website that I've frequented a lot, the German news website spiegel.de, has converted to pay only mostly, and i now can't use it anymore. I am not saying that's the fault of…

Every culture has a version of the children's story, such as "the goose that laid the golden egg." Somebody is given a machine that can produce seemingly unlimited wealth, and they use it without restraint until it breaks down and leaves them bankrupt.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#115

Post by Spivak »

softwarebeware wrote: post #56
paxys wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it isn't a technology problem but a legal one.

Exactly. Sure you can set up and accept money quite easily using any number of methods. The problem then comes in of how you are legally classified with each governmental jurisdiction that each donation happens to fall under, and now you're in a mountain of registrations, reports, audits, licenses, and other red tape.

You make it sound so complicated but even 14 year old teenagers on TikTok can make it work -- everything from Venmo, Patreon, buy me a coffee type sites, Amazon wishlists. Unless you're pulling in crazy amounts of cash there's really no legal red tape for person to person gifts.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#116

Post by fregante »

notum wrote: post #2

Because the original blocker: AdBlock, did. And some donated more than others. The rest is history.

> And some donated more than others

That's unrelated to donations. One can accept donations without putting their soul on sale.

As an extension developer I get offers for buying my extensions or adding donator-specific functionality: I just don't accept them, even though I accept simple donations/sponsorships. The extension is still free of ads (except in the readme)

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#117

Post by fregante »

sedatk wrote: post #59
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #27

> I don't want the administrative workload coming with donations. It's absolutely shameful that over three decades into the internet age, we still don't have zero friction ways of accepting, sending and accounting for money on the internet.

GitHub has GitHub Sponsors program. It's pretty much zero friction.

GitHub Sponsors is a technical solution, but I still need to handle the legal side of the equation.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#118

Post by fregante »

BeetleB wrote: post #87
freediver wrote: post #13

There is nothing wrong with being rewarded for your work. There could be uBlock Origin Pro for people who want to support it. It can offer no other feature other than a Pro icon.

There's nothing wrong with not accepting rewards for your work.

It's kind of weird to work for free though, isn't it? Sure it's something we like doing, but I really see no reason to reject free money. For uBlock this free money would be a fairly large amount, I'm sure. Even if that'd require some legal setup, I assume those fees will be largely covered.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#119

Post by chrismcb »

nocturnial wrote: post #80
binwiederhier wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never used an ad blocker and have resisted installing it many times. My thinking always was: I'd rather have a web with ads than a web in which I have to pay for content and sign up to 800 different websites with 800 different accounts. A website that I've frequented a lot, the German news website spiegel.de, has converted to pay only mostly, and i now can't use it anymore. I am not saying that's the fault of…

I have the opposite viewpoint about ads. I don't think we should reward a business model which relies on the premise that humans like to watch ads. I never had someone tell me to drive slower because they wanted to take a closer look at a billboard. Never had I had to rewind a video because someone missed an ad. etc... etc... Let's be honest. If someone told you to do any of the above things regularly and consistentl…

Of course people watch ads. It is (or used to be#one reason outdoor watch the Superbowl. The world would actually be a boring place without ads. The problem is when they are over done or deliver malware.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#120

Post by pjscott »

freediver wrote: post #16
bspammer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the feeling of doing good in the world is reward enough for them, especially if they already have more than enough money to get by (as most devs in the west do).

Nothing would prevent him to donating the excess money to causes he cares about?

When people donate to an open source software project, they probably aren't intending to donate to some other cause that the maintainer cares about. It would be at least slightly unethical to solicit donations for the former and spend them on the latter unless the donation page was exceptionally forthright about it.
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