> Maintainers may not want to determine who gets to feed their family, by choosing which contribution gets merged (either by deciding between competing implementations, or deciding which contribution to review).
Aren't they making such a determination already by disallowing bounties altogether?
No, the would-be contributors could work on something else. That's no longer about preferring contribution X from would-be contributor A over would-be contribution Y from non-contributor B.
Aren't they making such a determination already by disallowing bounties altogether?