I know it feels gross, but asking is how you get people to do things. This is true for pretty much everything. That’s why mobile apps have a popup asking people to leave a rating, and Apple even has a standardized API for showing that popup since it’s so common.

So you should try something similar for you projects. Come up with an (ideally non-intrusive) ask that feels like a personal request rather than just a link dumped somewhere in a readme.

And if you feel bad about it, just remember that getting people to pay for OSS is a win for the whole ecosystem!