Browse around a few popular open-source projects and you'll inevitably stumble
across the cardboard sign and upturned hat of an open-source busker. These are
developers who have added a widget to their project pages so that fans of their
work can pledge a small amount of money on a monthly basis. The idea is that
these small amounts allow users to show support or express gratitude for the
author's work. Frequently these widgets are accompanied by a patronizing
request to "buy me a coffee and support my project". There's even a "Buy me a
coffee" website, tagline is Get the support
your work deserves (note to the site's copywriter, is the target audience
starved for coffee or support? I'm unclear on which).
These programmers are holding out their hats and asking, "brother, can you
spare a dime"? But they're not indigent, in fact most of them have full-time jobs.
So maybe it's more like my 4-year-old son asking "can I have candy?" after
dinner. My instictive reaction is to run like hell from these kinds of developers and their projects. Because this practice is in direct conflict with my own experience
that hard work is its own reward, and that the only things worth doing are
worth doing as an end in themselves. And just as my son's dinner is what
provides him with the nutrition his body needs, the work itself is what
sustains high-quality open-source projects in the long run.
The developers asking you to buy them coffee aren't driven to this behavior out
of necessity. Waitresses depend on tips, software engineers do not. These
software engineers are trying to satisfy a personal need for acceptance. A hit
of dopamine when they get a notification that someone is willing to support
them in a (somewhat) tangible way. It's not about sustainability. It's about
mutual recognition, belonging, being part of a scene. It's insular nerd
culture. It's "while you're here, check out our splashy landing page and be the
first to star our project on GitHub."
As I was thinking about all this, I remembered why, the lucky stiff.
why became an idol of sorts for a whole crop of developers during the web 2.0
era. He then became even more famous in 2009 for deleting all his work and
vanishing from the internet. I remember sitting in my office in 2010, and there
was this guy who was attempting to copy why's quirky/whimsical style, and our
sys-admin absolutely crushed by him saying, "Ah, so-and-so, you're just trying
to be why." Maybe we were wondering who the next why would be. Maybe it
could be me?
In the last 10 years I've seen a few people flame out spectacularly, while
others have quietly wiped away all traces of their work before vanishing into
the gray sea of cubicles. Ever-present, the countless sweaty tryhards, who have
seen what can be bought with reputation in the software community, and are
trying -- one github star at a time -- to emulate this kind of success for
personal glory.
Maybe that's too absurd. But ask, what's behind all these slick landing-pages
with bespoke fonts and their pleas to sign up for a newsletter? Are they onto something big? I see nothing but
desperation. The landing page has been developed, refined and A/B-tested.
Behind it is a mist of vaporware, empty GitHub repositories ("we're in stealth
mode!") and a dragon's hoard of ".io" domain names serving up blank "nginx"
responses.
I don't want to be a part of this. I don't want to see this become accepted as
normal. Isn't it embarrassing to ask for coffee when you're employed full-time
as a programmer? A $100K salary (median for developers) means that $5 tip you
are grifting for is about what you'd make while walking to the break-room,
puring yourself a coffee, and walking back to your desk. Wouldn't you feel
ashamed to lay in bed at night and soothe yourself with thoughts of all the
tips you might get? Maybe if you tweak the landing page just a little.
I admire outsiders. While the next great JavaScript framework is out there
panhandling for stars, there are plenty of programmers content to focus quietly
on their oeuvre. And then there are all those whose work may never be seen,
whose work is known indirectly through the artifacts that brilliance inevitably
produces. I hope they stay unknown. Remember what happened to why?
That's why this isn't really about tips, I guess. It's about authenticity and
principles coming into collision with market forces (because reputation is a
commodity). It's about the culture that has sprung up around GitHub, and its
effect on upward mobility for programmers. It's about the unbelievable pace of
change, the constant stream of new this, new that, better this, faster that.
Why? Because so many people are trying to make a name, to make their mark, to
be loved.