It's bananas when a FOSS project says they don't want more donations (because of how small their operational expenses are) when the app is buggy and becoming unusable (AntennaPod).

I can barely use the app for listening to podcasts anymore, yet I'm still being discouraged from donating money.

I don't understand it.

Debian is similar in that they take donations (in a very convoluted way the last time I made a donation) but are hardly willing to actually use it to make Debian better. The last I checked, anyway.

I don't run a FOSS project, so maybe I'm just missing something. But I do like to support them in ways I can, which is usually financially. What's the point if they aren't using the money to improve the software? 

 I use it daily. What is wrong with it?

As far as donations go. It really depends on the individuals. Many times they don't want the money due to tax and legal implications. Other times it may be due to privacy and security violation related issues. Some dont want to feel like coder whores for hire, because this is a passion project developed at a self pace. Every project has their reasons. Not all of them make sense.  

 When taking donations you don’t want the money to come with expectations to deliver something. You are not providing a service by definition. That’s why you’ll often see maintainers not taking donations after a while. They realize that the money frequently comes with requests.