Because there is no better metric to determine who desirable/important a project is than checking “how many people are willing to put money on it”, even if a small amount. Github stars do not pay any bills and are cheap to buy.
Shouldn’t it be advertisers, employers, and “sponsors” who foot the bill?
They would be. I’d hope that the majority of the funds would come from the big payers. But if there is one thing that the collapse of the “Web 2.0” (Twitter/Reddit) is showing is that it is important to have the interests of the users aligned with the interests of the site owners, and if end users are not paying, then they are only eyeballs and the site owners will be aligned only with the big sponsors.
They would be. I’d hope that the majority of the funds would come from the big payers. But if there is one thing that the collapse of the “Web 2.0” (Twitter/Reddit) is showing is that it is important to have the interests of the users aligned with the interests of the site owners, and if end users are not paying, then they are only eyeballs and the site owners will be aligned only with the big sponsors.