Yes, lemmy isn’t a free service So the argument to defend lemmy and give them money makes more sense when it comes to instances than it does for an app that shows up with a subscription model to remove ads.

The subscription from sync is not one run directly by the lemmy instance that is not charging api calls, not showing ads to users, and not paywalling users yet taking on so much expense. Which is why I’m not really sure what role sync plays here from your comments, since sync app and the costs of hosting a lemmy instance seem like entirely different matters.