It brings me no joy to say that now that I am on the maintainer side of some OSS, Hacktoberfest is a fear inducing event where people would just submit junk PRs just so they could get a T-Shirt...
We're so far from the original spirit of the event.
If someone had money to burn (come on cryptobros..), they could make a t-shirt that says "This T-Shirt earned by not participating in Hacktoberfest 2025"...
I suppose people who are familiar with the t-shirt fiasco might not want to avoid association with any further fests, I can't imagine someone wearing the t-shirt proudly, and if they bragged about it in a job interview it might even be a negative..
Edit to add: the prospectus PDF says sponsorship applications were in previous months, and August 2025 is the launch of the site. Sponsorship earns you a mention on their site.. so, since the site doesn't mention any other brand than DigitalOcean, were there no takers? Why is there still a form to enquire about being a sponsor?
And yes they're still going to have t-shirts... So will clothing made in Bangladesh go halfway around the world to end up in their neighbour country?
We're so far from the original spirit of the event.