Money was obviously an issue. $319 USD/month didn't cover the costs of running it. As noted in the post, "I’ve donated countless hours".
Where is the line between "trying to make a profit" and "trying to be self-funding"?
Trying to be funded off of donations is really hard and rarely works. Most of the time you need other funding models.
If someone runs a biz where they run mastadon instances and the business breaks even (or just a little more) is that making a profit?
How does an organization behind an instance make money to cover expenses? This has to be looked at.
Even though funding wasn't the primary focus of this blog post, it seems to make it quite clear where the money was coming from: https://www.patreon.com/ashfurrow