Fair enough. But I also don’t agree with the assessment that it would bring more users in. There are already a ton of instances to pick from. While democratizing an instance seems interesting, if I were constantly in the minority for instance changes, it would be better for me to save my money and simply find an instance that aligns with my preferences. You’d also need a pretty significant amount of paid users to be able to pay any sort of salary, plus the additional headache of sorting out payroll for people who are likely in several different countries. If you just wanted to offset server costs that would be significantly smaller in scope, but then no paid mods.
I’m not saying don’t try it (anakin), it could maybe be pretty cool, but it seems like a long shot to me personally.