[sroussey]

Back in the day, we had requested donations for Firebug (which had millions of installs) and the revenue was embarrassingly pathetic. We used it to give contributors in non-western countries some bonuses from time to time.

[zerocrates]

There you're taking the already high-ish barrier for devs to pay for tools, as discussed elsewhere in this thread, and adding on the really high barrier to get people to donate to things they can use for free.

[sroussey]

True, but there was a high barrier to entry to just install it. And for a long time there was little else you could use.

On the other hand, it was free and more important to get people to use it and be more productive then generate revenue.

[zerocrates]

Not criticizing Firebug, aboslutely. Just speaking to the challenges of trying to run on individual donations.