Because trustee-run non-profits never get up to inefficient or unethical behavior, right? Also note that "minimum cost of maintenance" is a very flexible concep

Because trustee-run non-profits never get up to inefficient or unethical behavior, right? Also note that "minimum cost of maintenance" is a very flexible concept. How much do we spend on moderation and new features? This is why you want it to be as directly accountable to the users as possible, so they can decide or at least influence those thresholds (there need to be some hard minimum standards for moderation). It might take a while, but as long as it's possible for existing users to pay more, pressure will build up to convince them to do so. Whether because costs go up, usership goes down, or what. Any organization seeks to survive, and it will need money. Your lottery is sufficiently weird that I can't say it's exactly what my proposal is designed to prevent, but it's definitely in the space of wacky things no one should have to worry about. Also I don't think you understand the level of investment that can go into a dating profile. Message history, for instance. To the extent you do have trustees, I'm not sure it's wise to not pay them a salary. You don't really want to give power to people who will accept a power trip in lieu of money. Unless it's really easy for the community to replace them