oK, I will cheerfully admit that you weren't imagining things; that said, I think the masto devs have generally made at least the appearance of evil here, which is potentially as bad as just plain old evil.

Limiting access to FOSS is bad. Everyone involved in FOSS knows that. If they were going to do something like this, they could have at least kept it between themselves and their beta testers, and not made a point of telling everyone they had to be a patreon supporter to get access. Do they have an interest in the success of patreon? if not, what then is their motivation in using a selection metric so directly associated with their cash flow? At some point, they must understand that a donation is made voluntarily, and if you require a donation, now or previously - your software or service is simply not free, and you have been made to pay for it, and that payment is not a donation but a charge.

For the record, I'm not overly invested in your opinion of me. I'm simply sharing my views. I respect your right to differ with me ;)