$1 might not be a lot to you, but in some countries that's the daily wage. Even in rich countries one dollar for some might be the difference between eating or not eating that day.
Paywalling without any regional pricing consideration it's just going to incentivize people from poor countries to not participate in your project. Maybe that's okay for you but it's something to consider.
You're right, I'm fortunate enough to not have this experience. But not only both food and gas are much more than 1€, but also people in this situation are too focused on finding a way to make money to care about submitting merge requests
