As a pure image hoster, you don't earn much money, and if you're any good and fast, your traffic will go up and eventually eat up any amount of donations that c

As a pure image hoster, you don't earn much money, and if you're any good and fast, your traffic will go up and eventually eat up any amount of donations that content creators can muster. Content creators won't chip in more as your bills rise, because all those views don't necessarily translate to sales, and eventually something will give. And if you start to charge, and your price exceeds the cost of self-hosting, content creators will leave.