I think the attitude that gofundme is supposed to be for needed things or emergencies like "My house burned down" is wrong. A ton of people use gofundme for all sorts of frivolous things.
A tip jar is totally different from making a gofundme asking for random people to donate money towards a new snake. And by making the gofundme, you are asking for money. But a tip jar is set up to offer extra funds for good service. In other words, your gofundme is rather like a tip jar in your coffee shop where you expect people to walk off the street to put money into the tip jar WITHOUT buying coffee or receiving any service. I don't know anyone who randomly walks into restaurants to put money into a tip jar for no reason.
The good points for your(hypothetical) gofundme is that you are being HONEST and saying "I'd like to buy this snake sooner rather than later, and if you'd like to help me out, I'd love you forever, thanks!" You're NOT setting up a gofundme and spinning some tale of woe "My parents kicked me out and I have no food or place to stay" or "My car broke down and I have no way to get to work" or whatever made-up scenario you feel would get you more donations. I do think that a lot of the donation sites are used in such a manner to collect money from good hearted people who have zero way to know it's a scam.
The bad points are that it does make you look like a "I deserve this so someone should buy it for me" instead of a responsible young adult who pays their own way. I'm not saying you ARE that way, or that you WOULD BE that way. I'm just saying how it can make you appear to outsiders. It's different when your friends help you out because they know you want a thing... that's friends offering unsolicited help. Friends do these things. It's different from a specific tip jar in a business, where customers would offer extra tip to help out a person who has given good service to them. It smacks of "I want a handout" which turns a lot of people off right away.
Myself, I rarely offer money up for "I want a new xbox" type requests. I am overly generous at times to businesses or people offering services I enjoy or even to people online who have a good blog/twitch/etc that I regularly enjoy. A good waiter/waitress gets a superb tip from me, because I feel like they'll probably get shafted by someone else and I want to give them at least a little boost as a reward for doing a good job. Same goes for other services. When a person is offering nothing at all, but wants money, I'm much less likely to offer them anything at all.
As a related subject, I'm more likely to donate money to kids doing a car wash or something than to kids standing outside a store with a bucket. Even if I don't GET the car wash... I'm more likely to just give those kids a donation because they are out there hustling and trying to EARN some more for the trip/etc instead of just sticking a hand out and asking for random strangers to fund them.
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