Those two examples map to the first and second parts of my claim.

Though I'm making a general reflection rather than trying to antagonize any individual here. I was already thinking about this when clicking into TFA to see that yes, it's another donation beg.

The answer to the person I replied to is basically: yes.

There's a nit in human psychology between mutual transactions (even lopsided against our favor) and voluntary unilateral ones (like donations) where the latter results in disproportionate scrutiny and entitlement compared to the former.

I once started accepting donations on my forum. I noticed people acted like they were about to make the grandest gesture in the world, would I be so lucky to deserve it after answering their questions despite having built a forum they spend four hours a day on. (They gave me $5)

And once they donated, they saw themselves as a boardmember-like persona with veto power and a disproportionate say on what I do, often pointing out that they're a donor. (They gave me $5)

I'm exaggerating a bit to paint a picture of what I mean. I think it's all unintentional, and they might be embarrassed if I'd told them this.

But I ended up refunding everyone after a while.

Yet when I charged $5 to let users expand their PM inbox size or max avatar resolution, nobody ever brought it up. They understood the transaction ended there. What is the $5 used for? -- What do you mean? It doubled my PM inbox size.

It's a funny quirk of our brain. I think a license purchase aligns expectations much more than groveling for donations, and it creates a natural freemium model for open source (or source-available rather?) projects.