They host and serve the data which cost a lot of money, they are not charging for it they are asking for patronage for those who want to. vip doesn't get you much apart from the feeling of participating (I'm vip). It's not different from lemmy, instance hoster ask for patronage to cover the costs, even though the data is produced by users.
Exactly. I'm all for hating on subscriptions, but this is more than a fair price. Just eat at home instead of buying out for one day a year and it pays for it lol