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I for myself, coming from a privileged situation wonder if 500$/yr would be worth it for me.

Do calling it "work" it is too little. Won't pay the time spent on a job.

At the same time it is an amount of money, causing responsibility. Giving the feeling that one has to return something for it ...

So how does at affect your fun-level?

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I don't have the feeling that I have to give something in return. It's a voluntary donation, people can donate, or not. They can cancel at any time. I don't feel any pressure to 'deliver' anything. They're paying because they want to reward the value I have provided, and likely will continue to provide. If I stop providing it, I assume people will slowly cancel their donations, which is how things should work.

If anything the fun-level has gone way up because a community has formed around one of my projects, which has been great.

I have my own little company and I feel like since its profitable (7 figures/year) I'm able to take my time and perfect parts of the project (like SQL indexing, UI/UX, new features). The money allows me to have the freedom to have fun. I've built internal libraries where I could have just used an open source version, but its mine and I enjoy it.

I had started another company before that I spent over a year on and I made $0. Not fun.

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