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flattr was on the right track, but didn't know how to do it right. Reddit, discord, and free-to-play games figured it out: let people pay for visuals, status, and exclusivity.
visuals = skins, themes, sets, icons, merch - make it flashy and people will buy it
status = "biggest contributor", "biggest tipper", "most active poster", "I paid for this icon saying I'm better than all of you"
exclusivity = one time access pass to a face to face interview with the devs, limited community access, access to pre-lease of some feature, ...
None of it has to be actually functional. It just has to make people feel better (than others) and you can make bank without ads.
The easy route to Exclusivity is Manufactured FOMO (fear of missing out).
Visuals that give people a sense of "I'm better than you" are a huge potential moneymaker even if they do nothing functionally. We will see if we need these, but honestly even these changes start to alter the landscape of the community in I view to be negative ways.
Keeping a community as donation supported (with no status given for doing so) goes a long way towards fostering a supportive and intentional ethos, even when it's a small fraction of the users donating.
The question is whether donations are enough to support the product.