I’m fairly new and don’t 100% understand it yet, but instances are run on servers that require money. Are we heading towards seeing ads or subscriptions to raise funds instead of relying on donations to cover overhead?
Especially with the influx of new users. Hardware upgrades are needed.
As long as a company can’t outright buy the whole network or something like that, I don’t think it could get fucked over in the same way that something like twitter or tumblr can.