I love it. I feel that having the downloader physically typing the number zero ensures that the downloader understands that there is 'A' number that belongs there. It respects the downloader (no ads or pushy verbiage) while sending this message of 'yeah, it is free to use, and it costs money/time/resources to create, so your financial contribution would be appreciated.

Nah .. everybody thinks that they will give contributions and are really charitable in their heads. When it comes down to reality however you never really donate. When it's pushed into your face like this there's an actual call to action to do it. If you want it for free you still get it.

Remember this is for consumer oriented projects, they can't expect to get B2B support deals for keeping vital servers up and running. So why not. Maybe a slider would've done it better, because then the 0 value is made available in a different way. Like the humble bundle used to. But that's just nitpicking. And sliders with different platforms and whatever might get messy.

You're definitely not the only one. They have been called out before for this exact stunt:

https://liliputing.com/2015/02/elementary-os-devs-say-youre-...

Along with the "you're cheating if you don't give us money" (paraphrasing) quip. There are better distros out there.

I don’t mind it. It’s a reminder that you’re getting something for free and that you could donate.

You have to enter 0 as oppposed to by default paying nothing.

It’s just forcing you to confront the fact that you’re using software that others put a lot of effort into, for free. A simple fix to quell the bad feelings would be donate a few bucks. Win/win.

This is a pretty common practice in the arts - Louis CK and Radiohead both used this to great effect.

Indeed, my recollection is that Radiohead made more money on their album In Rainbows doing 'pay as much as you want' than their label paid them on previous records.

I think it's totally fair they do this to be very honest.

This is a relatively recent change. I remember that they used to be much clearer about this back in Loki.

They've had this since at least 2015, so not really all that recent.

Must have been Freya, then.

That is like the first thing I saw too. I was not fooled. But maybe this system works better then a free + donate button. Only data can tell... Maybe people are donating more with this system?

I didn't see anything remotely like A/B/C testing. They might benefit from something like that.