I was frequent poster/commenter on Reddit before having a mini burnout by so many of my comment chains just randomly escalating into pointless arguments by toxic people, so I turned into a long-term lurker after that.
Conversations on Lemmy are definitely way, way more inviting to partial lurkers like me who want to join in conversations once in a while without having to think about some random toxic people basically hijacking the conversation I'm having to satisfy their need to vent their toxicity onto the internet.
I've been hosting a gaming server plus other related stuff myself for some years now.
While the user base will definitely be different, relying solely on donations is unfortunately not sustainable long-term. Donations fluctuate massively based on time of year in my experience. So it's always good to periodically remind your community that lemm.ee needs donations to survive long-term.
When I do those reminders, users come out of the woods in droves to donate. It's less that they're unwilling to donate and more that they just forget to donate.