you say it yourself with: ''More and more people are using SteemSQL and rely on its availability and performance to provide services and information to all Steemit users'' im willing to make noise if you cant make it up to keep it for free and fix some people who have actual benefit for this like some people who are saying they are executives and have a lot of sp and strange delegations to asian stereotypes.. so what can be done is a crowdfunding but if you take away our information that we can use to make our investmentstrategy or just info about the state at all you cannot make that premium. if you really do then you show the wrong intentions.. especially if there is no other option to get all information out.. and since the environement grows and matures, you took the responsibility so you have to provide that.. whatever happens if you do that I will completely lose my likes.. because the system is super pyramid at the higher sp's and the lower sp's are not able to get information of a free opensource blockchain... smt is what is going to add to the ''restrictions'' too as i see it.. but to come to the point.. if you are providing a service that gives valuable information, and do so since the start of all.. you had not the intentions to earn money with it anyway but now you can't i have rights on that information else this whole system here on steem is getting too centralized. I am willing to help in getting donation