The reasoning is actually in the FAQ but I think the issues comes down to fees and technical requirements, if I understood it correctly.
But the FAQ also says:
We may explore this option in the future, but for now, there is just a lot of bureaucratic obstacles to making it work well.
I think there are some banks which offer APIs (no idea about which ones in the US, though) and Ardour could have its own bank account, so a simple script could detect wire transfers formatted in a specific way (for example, by specifying the username like this @fretboard in the reason for the bank transfer) and automatically handle the purchase. But this would not get around issues about fees, etc.
Hey, Paul. Have you ever thought about a cash-only system? Everyone in the world who wants a copy of Ardour could send you some of the currency used in their own country via postal service, and you could drive to the closest international airport near you, confirm its authenticity and value, and convert it into USD at the exchange counter. Then all you’d have to do is write them back with their invoice number, purchase the amount of stamps needed to send it on its way, and sit back and witness everyone on this forum compliment and promote this organization’s payment system. Food for thought.
You’ve got to be kidding. That would effectively kill Ardour. The cost of travel alone would probably eat up the “cash” and the time required would remove half the the development work force. So loose, loose and loose.
Lets drop back one step and assume that the user does the “drive to the closest international airport near” them. Even then there is a weekly trip to do banking, possibly offset by a grocery trip. However, by far the greatest problem would be accounting and manually emailing each person a file they requested or even changing a switch/parameter to paid. The automation is key to Ardour’s success I think.
I can’t speak for Paul, but I am certainly not cut out to be an accountant. If I had a software project that turned into a full time accounting gig. It would be over.