The contraction we're seeing in the tech space this year is in large part a consequence of venture capitalist funding. A significant portion of tech sites were being funded at a loss, with the idea that profitability could be achieved after establishing a userbase. Rising interest rates pushed the VCs to put pressure on the companies they invested in: "no more free lunch, realize our gains now". This is why you see a rash of tech sites abruptly restructuring (Discord) or completely collapsing (gfycat). Reddit falls somewhere between the two, because it's likely they're seeking an IPO and they don't care about the fate of the website once they cash out. Twitter is ruled by an emperor with no clothes. Facebook can't make as much money as it did prior to the added government scrutiny, and the Zuck has been frantically trying to diversify his company these past few years.
This is a long-winded way of saying that ernest deserves a lot of praise here for being realistic and up front with the operating costs of running the largest kbin instance. lemmy and kbin draw inspiration from the social media platforms that came before them, but can't budget for growth the same way that their predecessors did. It's not going to be cheap, they aren't going to get the free lunch that prior social media platforms had, and ernest needs to proceed with the well-being of both himself and his project in mind.
ajbin