Ways to contribute monetarily?
I imagine that with the influx of new users, instances paid by volunteers will be stretched. Some I imagine are creating instances, to spread out the load, but some of us cannot / don't want to create and manage instances. For these efforts to be successful I imagine that monetary support would be helpful.
Is there a way to support instances / development?
Multiple users have mentioned this for supporting kbin development: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kbin
But I don't know how to verify whether this is legit. You should probably contact the developer directly: https://kbin.social/u/ernest
The buymeacoffee link can be found in the About page at the bottom of the page.
You do not have to create your own instance to leave kbin.social. There's kbin.cafe, and many more. Here a list I found:
https://kbin.fediverse.observer/list
And remember that, wherever you move, you are still connected to this instance and can interact here.
Nobody has to pay anything to move. By moving, you are spreading the traffic out more evenly. If you were here for the first couple days of the protest, it was really laggy here and that was us all landing on kbin.social at the same time.