@mastodonmigration And no, it wasn't that I wanted to get rich. Rather, I thought that open source software should be more competitive, and try to break up the walled garden approach. And commenting / the ability to connect with others, while giving them control was something we had everyone beat at.
It likely would've driven a lot of people to use our site and support our general mission, which can easily be monetized in a non-evil manner.