Why would it be fraud if they're upfront about it?
It looks like the entire point of thanks.dev is that you give them your dependency list and they attempt to distribute your donation budget between your dependencies. Their target audience specifically doesn't want to think about where exactly the cash goes, they just want to make sure it goes to maintainers of software they use.
No one is being defrauded when the exact distribution of the funds changes because the exact distribution of funds is explicitly delegated to thanks.dev.
Comments
Why would it be fraud if they're upfront about it?
It looks like the entire point of thanks.dev is that you give them your dependency list and they attempt to distribute your donation budget between your dependencies. Their target audience specifically doesn't want to think about where exactly the cash goes, they just want to make sure it goes to maintainers of software they use.
No one is being defrauded when the exact distribution of the funds changes because the exact distribution of funds is explicitly delegated to thanks.dev.
Snake oil salesmen are also upfront about their products features. All of them... except the part about them being snake oil.
I dunno pal. I think the idea behind thanks.dev can be a good one, but I think I agree with GP. This seems rather snaky to me.