When they talk about being profitable what they mean is that the CEO needs to be paid some stupid wage like 10.000.000 a month, then being able to cover employees salaries and then costs of hosting and so on, and then, still being able to accumulate at last the double of the money per month so that they can see “growth”. Basically it all comes down allowing a parasite to live for free off the backs of the working class. If CEO or shareholders would earna normal wage, I bet your ass Reddit would be profitable as hell if what you care about is building an awesome tool.

What controversy?

Because its Rust

At the time Lemmy was not federating and they wanted to add some stuff like stickers and some other cool stuff, so now that federation works it is more complicated.