Ah. Thanks for explaining!
I think there’s a lot to unpack here.
Yes, people love a good story. We are wired to act emotionally and irrationally as you point out. This has always been human nature - appeal to emotion not to the rational part of the brain. No surprises there.
Another part of it is the feeing of having contributed to someone’s well being. It makes us feel good thinking we can play a small part in this unfortunate situation. Even if we realize it could be fake. We see this time and again when people try to make a difference when in the zoomed out view you know you’re not really making a dent. It’s the difference to the individual that matters. And a lot of times that requires a leap of faith to do what you think may or may not help, even at the risk of being ripped off. On the upside - you make an impact on someone’s life. On the downside you lose some sats. I really doubt the people who donate don’t understand that it could be a scam - more likely they acknowledge it and look past it anyway. The downside is too small to care about that much. It’s not that people are fools, just choosing to believe they’re told the truth.
I know for me personally I go through that rationale flow. Could this be a scam? No - give. Yes - do I think there’s a chance it’s not? Yes - give, no - move on.
As for developers, many are now being supported by open sats grants so they (and me) are not really working for free. We were just afforded time to work on nostr instead of something else. And yes, many are still doing it on their own dime and should be contributed to a lot more generously - not denying that.
Ultimately, I don’t see any harm in potentially helping someone out at the risk of losing some sats to a scam. In the end it’s up to the individual’s own financial situation, value system and risk analysis to determine what’s right and who am I to fault them for doing something I wouldn’t? We’re all grown ass adults here, let us do as we please.
