[shagie]

https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Stack+Exchange...

You can download the database for free.

Trying to say "give us your payment and tax information so that we can pay you $0.13 for your contributions" would be even more insulting than not paying anyone.

Doing renumeration for people in some countries could get legally challenging too.

[direwolf20]

Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? But they adopted it as their new business model nonetheless. Just one more stupid decision on the pile.