What would motivate me is in understanding and knowing who the instance owner is and what kind of person they might be and what kind of instance they would like to run .... and all of it explained and presented to me as clearly and openly as possible.
The instance owner of lemmy.ca ... @smorks .. answered many of my questions today which motivated me to go ahead and sign up for a $5 a month contribution
I agree with you ... we should all pay for it, even if it is a small amount of a dollar a month .. across thousands of users, it would make a huge difference. If no one pays for it or not enough people pay for it ... money, greed, desperation, economy and finance will always creep in to corrupt what an instance owner will or won't do.