[rglullis]

I am not even talking about adding crypto into the network protocol - which I agree is not needed unless you are an ideologue. What I am saying is that smaller instances (from tens to low hundreds of users) could accept crypto for payments and use that to fund its maintenance.

Yeah, you could do it with regular payment processors as well, but with crypto you could not only avoid the fees from micropayments (layer-2 solutions already exist and allow fast and cheap transfers) but most importantly you could run these instances without dealing with bureaucracy. No taxman will come after you because you are getting a few hundred bucks per month.