not sure how "one website" -- a relatively new website, too -- is much more stable than a full-time job. also i noticed you've got quite a few little gittip buttons on your blog.
Um. It's not (note the term "hypothetical"). The site has only been up a couple of months, and who knows if it as well as my projects will be that successful in it. Gittip is paying for my hosting completely however, and it took only a few weeks of the site's existence to do so. The PayPal link couldn't do that in 6 years, and PayPal donations still leave you more beholden than gittip since they aren't anonymous.
Your whole take on this is very odd as it's not clear what exactly you are expecting from gittip or why you care.
someone has yet to work as a freelance contractor, apparently.
If your project is funded by recurring tips from 1000 different users, if the quality and/or relevance of your project began declining, you'd see those tips start to decline over time, sending you the message that it's time to change how you're doing things, or move onto a different source of income.
That hypothetical situation is far more secure than receiving one salary from one single employer who could fire you or go out of business at any time, more often than not with no warning whatsoever to the paid employees.
Also I'm not sure why one needs to have a beef with gittip at all. If you don't like it, you are free not to participate. Trying to figure out what the actual "beef" is:
> The other flaw is that this inevitably boils down to a popularity contest.
Which almost makes no sense. What in this world is not a popularity contest already? My only guess is that it sounds like he prefers a market where open source projects remain underfunded and undermaintained, perhaps making it easier for hobbyists to make a splash.
> Tips are not a replacement for passion.
The idea is that for once, those of us who are passionate enough that this is much more than a hobby for us, who don't just come up with handy tools on github but in fact provide large pieces of infrastructure for dozens or hundreds of money-making companies, can finally get some regular compensation for it, exactly without being "beholden" to anyone.