This doesn't surprise me at all... Just like bots in games. Selling a service that benefits another. Its shady, but definitely believable.
Also, what if this is an actual viable way to "market" for an open source project?
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/over-31-million-fake-stars-on-github-projects-used-to-boost-rankings
Programming never needed these sorts of social media features in the first place. Do you part by getting your projects off of Microsoft’s social media platform used to try to sell you Copilot AI & take a cut of your donations to projects with Sponsors.
Federated repo hosting website when?
Forjego is looking into it.
Radicle can do it presently but a lot folks dismissed them since they worked on cryptocurrency stuff independently. Weird thing to be hung up on considering they were separate endeavors, but folks are fickle.