&gt; <i>How many people treat github as an online resume? These projects are meant primarily to show off people&#x27;s coding capabilities in order to sell service</i><p>That&#x27;s what it is now, and the reason it happened was because Github was full of projects created out of a sense of altruism and fun, and it got respected this way. Yes, the respect and popularity Github has stems not from code-resume-builders, but from the altruists and people doing fun shit for fun that came before.<p>You see, this is a pattern that repeats all over software industry, the whole Internet included. First you start with people doing something to actually do it (i.e. as a terminal goal). Then whatever useful and&#x2F;or fun they made gets recognized, popularized, and some people smell a money making opportunity (i.e. doing stuff as an instrumental goal, to get money). The business comes and the whole environment turns to shit.