I don't believe money is the real issue here. Dave has been running this site for quite a few years now but I am sure he has many other interests, he is a very bright individual, so it is quite reasonable to assume he has lost interest in this particular venture for the moment.
And I have observed that he doesn't particularly want to share the site, or info about the site, with anyone else. If the cost had been a real hardship for him then this site would have closed long ago. I suspect he is gaining some benefit from "owning such a site" and perhaps there is a longer term benefit.
For my part I have enjoyed being a guest here and the many years of reliable uninterrupted service, until recently. The recent downtime has encouraged me to seek other sites, although none are quite as good as this site has been, but they can evolve and grow as this did. I find that high availability is high priority since I enjoy being able to drop in at any time and read and post as I feel inclined. The recent very long downtimes have been significantly inconvenient and I do not see any guarantee forthcoming that they won't occur again soon.
The site exists because Dave gains some pleasure from it so I don't feel I owe him anything and he doesn't owe me anything. And without some indication of future reliable service I am certainly not inclined to engage in any serious debates that I have in the past, and risk losing access to many hours of creative writing.
So with that in mind I believe I will pursue activities at
www.thescienceforum.com instead, where the owner does appear to be actively engaged and genuninely enthusiastic.
Cris