1. Gittips aren't a paycheck, they are a no-strings-attached gift.
2. Small cash compensations will free people up to contribute to society on their own terms rather than wasting their time surfing Facebook in a cubicle.
3. It might be a reminder that their society values the contributions they make based on their passions and interests and not on their utility to a corporation.
4. Popular developers know who is doing the grunt work and deserves more recognition. They can call out such people via Twitter, etc. In the future I can imagine upgrading Gittip to allow high earners to distribute higher amounts per person per week.
5. Young Jedis will be incentivized to add true value to society as adjudicated by the wise crowd, rather than answering to a monolithic corporation as their societal proxy.
So, there is no problem to solve, just potential to poison one of the biggest qualities.
The only argument which makes sense at the light of this, is number 4, and that is an interesting problem. Distribution of wealth.
Tips are small so there's no strings attached. That's different than with other uses of money.
1. People perform poorly, creative and intellectually, when there is a reward at stake, specially if it is cash. This is proved by multiple studies.
2. Small cash compensations will shift the focus from the main reason people enjoy to code and contribute. Worst, if the amount of cash reward is inferior to the true value of the work they do (and it will be), people will feel undervalued and loose motivation. Either pay them well, or not pay at all.
3. It will be a constant remainder they should be making real money instead of making tips on github.
4. The system benefits developers by popularity instead of quality. Besides popular developers are those who need it the least.
5. Popularity and profit will poison the minds of the young Jedi's while coding thus decreasing overall code quality, creativity and productivity.