@rm4 It is freemium. Free with all functionality, but with ads. You can pay $20 to remove them permanently, and that seems to be what Lemmy objects to. He also has a subscription tier that gives you cloud backup/sync and a couple other niceties.
Except it's literally just ONE guy keeping the whole thing going, and there are only about 100k active daily Lemmings. A dude's gotta eat, and I honestly don't see an issue with paying $20 for literal years of scrolling.