Reminds me of the core-js debacle.

I don’t like donation banners. I don’t like more that they’re necessary and actually work.

A small problem is they degrade the software even when I’ve already donated. The bigger problem is they’re a downward spiral: people get desensitized, so you have to add more aggressive banners, until you’re like the 33MB news sites where 90% of the screen is intrusive noise. Our society, offline and online, is already crammed with ugly boards asking us to give money.

There are ad-free spaces, and it’s at least theoretically possible to make money without ads yourself. I hope eventually ads will become less effective and people will become more inclined to donate (or something like UBI), so it will be more possible.

Until then, I don’t really fault LibreOffice for this. Especially because it’s FOSS, so people who really care can just remove it.