Most of my PRs are drive-by PRs: I have an problem, maybe a bug or missing feature, that annoyed me enough to fix it. And because I want to use future versions without the work of maintaining a fork I instead invest the work to upstream the fix. A step that is sometimes more work than the fix itself. At that point I wouldn't mind paying $1 to get that PR looked at and merged.

But that is not the only type of PR. We clearly need escape hatches for people who engage with a project on a deeper level.

"We clearly need escape hatches for people who engage with a project on a deeper level".

Yep. The project maintainer can whitelist those people.

Another way to think of it is: paying $1 to have your pr and concerns elevated above the supermajority sea (that which will be ai driven contributions). For that cost, it's a steal of the deal.

Then, from the perspective of "it's a donation to a project you care about" it becomes even more rational. But the project itself getting the money has all the problems others have outlined already, so that idea's a bit bust.

> "it's a donation to a project you care about"

But I'm already donating my time by creating a PR, it definitely would disincentivize me to make PRs if I had to also pay in addition to already doing the actual work. Just always such a shame that the good people have to suffer because of the actions of the shitty people...

Nope. From the POV of the maintainer, you are creating extra, and probably unnecessary, work for them.

If that's actually the opinion of the maintainer, why even accept PRs at all? At that point, just categorically deny any. I was thinking more of actual community projects that _want_ community PRs. Those seem to have welcomed my contributions in the past, but of course they were not just AI slop or other low effort PRs.

The money is going to a charity of your choice.