I donated a substantial amount - and I agree completely. I knew I was paying Kenneth Reitz, and have no concern whatsoever what happens after that. I’ve gotten several orders of magnitude more benefit from Kenneth and his work than my donation. Hell, for that matter, I’ve gotten several orders of magnitude more benefit than the total of all donations combined.

"I’ve gotten several orders of magnitude more benefit from Kenneth and his work than my donation."

But he hasn't committed code to requests in years, and I don't see any of the other maintainers popping up to say he's doing good work as a maintainer(which could be non-code contributions). It seems like his contribution is mostly marketing at this point.

I suspect they do. Kickstarters and such are so loosely goosey that I donate with an expectation that at least 30% is waste, error, etc.

I typically only pay attention if it just seems out fraud.

I don’t know if everyone else feels the same way, but I suspect so based on the poor documentation.

It’s kind of like, I think, if I give $5 to a busker and she ends up buying an expensive beer instead of the daily special.

It is a ridiculously small amount of money though. You are probably right it is being wasted and misused, but that is half of kickstarters. It is par for the course when donating to a non-charity, it is trust and this guy is eccentric and weird. I think people have unrealistic expectations in this situation.

Maybe you're right that it's a bit naive to throw money at internet eccentrics who don't have a plan and trust that they will manage things well.

I just don't think we should be excusing things because it's (what some people think) is a small amount of money (note - about the average yearly income for a Canadian).