I also pay for a ml domain now, 11$ a year. Used a free one, set up my mail server and some other stuff, now I need that domain because of the mail adresses I and others from my family use. Lemmy.ml has lots of users, it's the main devs instance after all. I don't think that the marxist-leninist thingy is the reason for that.

Though I disagree with dessalines political views.