Seems to be some misunderstanding somewhere - Jerry states elsewhere that the costs are covered by donations.

The Mastodon instance I'm on has around 200 people (not all of them active), and received around €800 in donations last year,. Total costs were less than €300.

I think the problem of scaling kicks in when we go after demographics that are less charitable on average.

I just watched the section of the interview where Jerry (admin of fedia.io and infosec.exchange), and he said that

There are a lot of people who aren't that lucky. Even charging a 1$ fee is too much. That is their lifeline, it's their way to connect to friends, and search for jobs. To me, I don't think it's appropriate to gatekeep it with a monthly fee.

https://video.firesidefedi.live/w/1yNa4rLzzLXnuRoX7Rny3y?start=38m45s

For the host question, it's at 34:11