I mean, you’re definitely not wrong. All of these mbin sites are typically pretty small but once they cross the point where you’re looking at getting a second server to keep the site running then prices start to escalate.

Modern servers are pretty good but I believe depending on how well the software is written that should be somewhere around 10,000 concurrent users.

If they are using cloud hosting their prices will escalate alongside their user counts but if they are using co-location or something like that they have to go out and buy additional boxes at the cost of several thousand dollars a piece and pay for extra space in the colocation center.

They should definitely make it easy for us to contribute to running the site or at the very least do regular planned donation drives kind of like Wikipedia.

I agree so much with you, I am running a commercial provider for Fediverse services for almost five years. The problem is that we are still a very tiny minority relative to the amount of internet users.