Tim Gowers (and several other mathematicians) called to boycott academic publishers with The Cost of Knowledge (http://thecostofknowledge.com/), giving largely similar reasons. It had some success if I recall correctly.
The change they made was from a monad to an applicative, which is less "hands on", thus preferred. Kind of preferring map over hand-written loops. (Although the golfing is definitively there and in the community, see pointfree/pointless style https://wiki.haskell.org/Pointfree)
It's similar in Mexico. It’s not a coincidence that FuckUp Nights started there. It’s a very traditionalist and failure averse country, so that “making it” means being a manager in a good position in an old monopoly, even in entrepreneurial circles (even then, is limited to family-sized stable business). (It also helps that the upper-middle class in Mexico imitates american ways of life). So it’s an antidote for that location.
The way I see it, the main feature is being able to plug math formulas in, rather than formatting documents. It allows you to focus on your content (one feature of Markdown) while still being able to write mathematics.
I've taught in (Mexican) state programs for gifted youth and I can testify that a lot of the kids (many of them poor or almost) end up wasting their potential and having hard times, monetary wise. Meanwhile, significantly less hard working and less bright kids from private schools go on and get comfortable jobs.
A local think tank (http://pipe.cide.edu/talento-en-mexico) calculated the economical implications of not developing this talent. According to their model, on a 40 year span, developing it would give a 132% increase in the GDP per capita in comparison with staying at current levels.
I wonder if a patreon-like (or even patreon itself) would be more effective raising donations than just one-time donations. I know enough people that swear by gpg, so it doesn't strikes me as hard finding a base.
I think it is a feat to practice to the point of having seen thousands of problems and still know (or have a felling of) the way to go.
(Actually, most of the good sport coders that I know develop that knack of knowing where the solution is headed, without pinpointing a previous problem)