I think it would be a great way to give money to the hosters and get something that actually helps the community. Like having the cake and eating it too.
You donate a certain amount and get a sticker or something you can stick to threads like gilding in reddit.
But instead of giving money to an evil corporation you`d give it to the people that actually enable us to have the fediverse.
I mean, donating to the instance’s maintainer is exactly that.
Oh yes it does, I jsut meant something for you to give directly to other users.