What is staggering is that one would assume that this service was created with the aim of helping open source developers, but when the developers ask personally to make a reasonable change to how the site is functioning, the owners decline. So the reason the site exists is something different. I don't think it's fraud. It's probably the weird culture of the (younger) part of the Bitcoin community, for whom the Bitcoin is more like cultural revolution. It's hard to rationally explain why liking Bitcoin leads to liking tip4commit's approach, but surely the Bitcoin revolutionists like to place themselves above the rest, and don't see themselves as a part of the "old" world (legal, financial system etc.).
For example, the currently highest-voted comment on /r/bitcoin for the story [0] says "I disagree with him [mitsuhiko]".
That's a good question and a proof that pure FP isn't good for creating "stuff that works". For years the mantra was "bad industry doesn't want to use FP". But nowadays, especially inside a community like HN, this statement doesn't make much sense. There are plenty of side projects and startups, and how many of the successfull ones use pure FP?
I think the reason for this is that pure FP replaces classic programming with puzzle solving. It satisfies math-oriented minds by forcing usage of this math-oriented layer. But it looks like software isn't math and you often need to work with a computer in a more direct way.
For example, the currently highest-voted comment on /r/bitcoin for the story [0] says "I disagree with him [mitsuhiko]".
[0] http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kz9x0/please_remov...