Because there is not THE Lemmy operator. Every server is run by someone else. However, many server operators have the option of supporting them with donations.

There is, you can join my instance lemmy.bascul.in for 499.99 a month. Its benefits are:

• Useless
• Expensive
• May or may not cause nuclear fallout

But its worth its price. Plus with a tiny addition of 599.99 you can get a T-Shirt that smells like strawberries.

We had one, but it was based on paypal and Peter Thiel shut it down.