I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but hosting internet services is not free at all. I could fully understand why you’d basically force people to pay at least something instead of hoping that people choose to donate.

Lemmy is supposed to be a FOSS platform.

FOSS is free and open source SOFTWARE, i.e. the software is the free part. You’re free to host your own Lemmy instance if you’re displeased.

Would like to see some evidence supporting that beggars get an average close to $40 an hour. Searched for papers about the topic and haven’t found anything being remotely close to what you suggest.