[yoavm]

I'm sorry, but I would never give money to an open-source project through a VC-backed company that takes a 10% commission. I could maybe live with it if it was 0.5%, but heck I'll just find the maintainer and wire them the money somehow. Github Sponsorship takes 0% from private accounts.

I could very much be wrong about this, but the whole thing feels like it's coming from the perspective of someone thinking "I've heard about OSS, let's see how I can monetize it", rather than "I've participated in the OSS world for a long time, and I have an idea that can improve it".

[charcircuit]

You can make more money on a platform that has a higher fee if that platform has a better brand, has less friction, has more users, is easier to setup, etc.

[reaperman]

Yeah but 10% is still very greedy, assuming they become the dominant platform for this. And if they don't become the big platform for this then they aren't adding the value which justifies 10% anyways.

[charcircuit]

It's a smaller fee than Patreon.

[thebooktocome]

What comparable creator platform takes less than 10%?

[skrebbel]

It’s not about giving money, it’s about buying features, services and support from the maintainers.

[biscuitech]

Doesn't open collective already do this though? You can fund specific goals iirc.

[skrebbel]

Sure but to my reading Polar has a much stronger “help maintainers become entrepreneurs” angle which seems like a novel approach to me.

[VoxPelli]

StackAid is better in this regard:

1. Is bootstrapped rather than VC backed as far as I understand 2. Treats itself as one dependency among many, so it isn’t favored over other receivers 3. Rather it is penalized against other receivers as it at most will get 7.5% of one’s monthly donation: https://www.stackaid.us/

[harlanji]

Patreon seems like the next best thing that has peoples' cards and their cut is 10%.

Credit card fees alone were universally 2.9% + some cents last I checked.

It's interesting that GitHub takes 0%, but that's clearly subsidized by something and I'd like to know what before I sign up to that ("clearly," because of transaction fees they're paying).

10% is a reasonable cut if they can help maintainers get from $0 to $1 and beyond.

[yoavm]

So every time I'm sponsoring someone on Github, Microsoft loses some money? That's even better!

[robinhood]

I don't get this comment.

I host all my OSS projects on Github so I can have free and unlimited CI. I have access to Github Copilot for free. I use VScode which is arguably a great software all day, every day.

All this because Microsoft has a shit ton of money and they can afford funding the OSS community as a whole.

[aragilar]

And you don't think there might be a reason for all that (and that reason might correlate with people being happy to get one over them)?

[some_furry]

Suddenly I want to support a lot of small projects so they eat more transaction fees.

[spacemanspiff01]

Presumably they don't charge credit cards individually...

[38]

> 10% is a reasonable cut if they can help maintainers get from $0 to $1 and beyond.

how you can say this with a straight face is beyond me.

[DandyDev]

HN is supposed to be a site where participants each other's opinions.

Your response feels disproportionate. As if this person is suggesting giving up your liver is a reasonable price.