They have a good a point though... The donation model sadly doesn't really bring in a lot of money (or so it seems) for what the talent and effort behind the project is clearly worth.
I wonder if a subscription model or one lifetime payment would work. Must be open source, allow for crypto and all of that, but my assumption is that way more people would gladly pay if paying is the default and not an opt-in thing.
But since the devs will never do that (stubborn little altruistic pack ^^) maybe there's a better way to remind people of donating. A little supporter badge on the profile images (similar to Signal) or just a reminder notification once per year on installation date come to mind...