[birk]

> No doubt Polar can be a better product overall and focus on things that GitHub would never do. GitHub has a major distribution advantage though. Could see them adding something basic into GitHub Sponsors along with first-party UI that shows up on all issues.

Absolutely, I'm not saying it's not a risk. Ultimately, my stance and belief is that OSS is obviously a massive ecosystem deserving of an independent COSS pathway to support careers and small businesses to emerge from it. Creating such a long-tail economy is going to require so many different things and more will emerge once it's successful. That's how it should be. So I'm convinced there is room for many actors within this domain. Just like how Open Collective is doing a phenomenal job and solving real & hard problems within the donation & sponsorship domain even with GitHub Sponsors (often in partnership with OC).

So going back to my stance on what I think GitHub's strategy should be: Instead of expanding GitHub Sponsors themselves, I think it should become the payments layer within OSS. Offered through an API that their apps & partners can integrate with with GitHub getting revshare. Avoiding spreading themselves thin by chasing all these opportunities themselves and instead empowering more of them through a GitHub Payments API.

> Curious what you think about subscriptions versus one-time payments. Seems like Polar is going more for the latter. Would love if this was normalized and could see it leading to more money coming in overall. My concern is that subscriptions are great for predictability (company sponsors $500/mo) and without that I need to find a way to re-acquire money to pay rent every month.

Completely agree. We're going to do both. Started with one-time payments now in early alpha, but expanding into subscription is a core part of our long-term vision for all of the reasons you mentioned and more.