I'm not a rich man (I wish I were and I would just send more to you) but I've subscribed to a $5 month plan ... if all us users did the same, it would be more than enough to pay for the services you run and pay you for the work you do ... I honestly believe that we users have to learn that we need to directly pay the people who do the actual work of maintaining these open source social media systems ... even if it means that each user contributes a dollar a month, with thousands of users, it would all add up ... if we don't, we will eventually run into the same scenario of someone coming along to monetize it, commercialize it and sell it all along with our content.
I look forward to what you will with this instance ... keep up the good work, you sound like a good man who is working towards admirable goals.