Ernest recently posted a site update, which included this note:

When Kbin suddenly gained popularity, the project's maintenance costs far exceeded my initial estimates. While community support still allows for the cluster's maintenance, I also need to take care of my own livelihood and commitments.

You may not know (or may have forgotten) that you can directly support kbin and Ernest financially via the following:

• https://www.patreon.com/kbin_pub - helps cover kbin costs
• https://liberapay.com/kbin - helps cover kbin costs
• https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kbin - helps Ernest directly

As he wrote back in July:

Many of you asked me about the possibility of recurring support. I wasn't entirely convinced, especially since the current account balance should maintain the instance. However, I think it would be irresponsible of me not to consider it. /kbin has grown to a level where I can't foresee everything that will happen. It would be great if we could cover monthly costs with Patreon / Liberapay. All funds from Buy Me a Coffee will be transferred to this pool, but from now on, I'll treat it as buying me a coffee... or a beer... literally ;)

It would be nice if he got a few more messages like this: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kbin/c/6876421

edit: fixed typo