A good thing about much internet activism is ease of participation (slacktivism). Slacktivism can only go so far. As a similar example, this sub has 89 lemmy.ml subscribers, but most users have never commented or posted anything.
We can keep the lurkers/slacktivists, but it might benefit the ‘core team’ to have proper roles? I’m not entirely sure what the roles would be, but it has never been a problem at work to get workers to participate in the bosses schemes. Obviously a $$$ profit motive would be somewhat beneficial, but i’m sure there are volunteer mostly electronic organizations that do better work than pseudoanonymous internet groups. But when i’ve been in vaguely similar internet activists groups like this, we’re lucky if even 2 people/89 subscribers message the mods of a subreddit about a matrix bridge.
Pecuniary motivation is largely a negative impact. You’re not likely to be able to compete with actual salaries in actual jobs, so all you do when offering cash is make people put it into the “work” pile and then they’ll be thinking that it’s not paying enough.
If you want to motivate people in a volunteer arrangement, you have to find a reward that a) people desire, and b) that isn’t money. And one of the most powerful motivators in this realm is recognition and respect. (This is doubly true in technical spheres!)