You said you want good faith discussions, but you preemptively dismissed one of the biggest answers because you don't think it's a good solution. Then you have people here disagreeing with you, explaining why, and pointing to examples of it being done successfully, and you continue to completely dismiss a donation as nothing more than a "thank you" - how is this in any way a good faith discussion if any opposing viewpoint is immediately met with this kind of "YOU'RE the problem" response?

I do understand your frustration in those cases in which donations fail, but it seems like you're not willing to meet us halfway and acknowledge that sometimes, donations succeed, and not by accident or luck. There's data there - test cases we could be picking apart and seeing what critical mass needs to be reached before an instance can reliably secure donations and what we can do for admins until their instances reach that threshold. But you're just dismissing it as nonviable even though it clearly works for a lot of places.

That is not good faith.

You seem to be a victim of the disease called capitalistus brainrottus. I already said I donate, but I wouldn't even consider that to be as much a show of gratitude as someone who doesn't donate as much but contributes more content.

I was a Skyrim mod author and you pearl clutchers were always preaching doom and gloom there too, but fortunately there you failed while those who contributed freely and openly thrived. You who can't conceive of value beyond mere currency, where everything you do is transactional. I feel sorry for you.