Yup that is a real rough pill to swallow when the default is free AND no ads. If I’m going to drop money on lemmy I’d rather just donate to whoever is hosting my instance.

I like it a lot. Feels like early days Reddit. I do miss some of the niche reddit communities, but on the other hand the main lemmy continues seem much more approachable. My biggest complaint is that Lemmy can be pretty slow at times.