Monetization is needed, among other things, to pay for operating the extension.

Only advanced new features are paid - what you had for free is still free, and will always be free

All other extensions\apps with dislikes are using my API - with the api dying due to lack of funds - all other apps will die as well.

Unfortunately the extension requires quite a large database (~15TB) serivng 20 million unique daily users (chrome is not the only platform) - and it costs money.


The idea behind paid features was also to cover the costs (since donations became smaller than the hosting costs). Without bothering free users too much.