Maybe that money could be used for meet-up events and other activities that benefit the project and indirectly its contributors. That seems like a safe way to spend money without getting into trouble for paying some and not others, risking the open-source spirit of the project.
Yeah, it's probably not a great idea to pay developers with the donation money. I am not sure why I thought it was acceptable, but it is obvious now why this is a terrible idea.
Prolific devs could setup a Patreon/Librepay if they'd like, but that opens up its own can of worms like false expectations/entitlement of some donators. They might prefer not to do that for that reason alone.
