i think the idea was to be self sustainable? its like zapping dev, but its not enough, hence the grants. But if people were to put in 10% of their income into nostr, with tax exemptions etc i'm sure it would be more sustainable - but could lead to massive abuse of funds.

But I get what you mean. I was surprise that in the US and other large churches, pastor are millionaires - like wow lol. In the circle I am around, pastors are not paid, they are given phone and min travel allowances.

Interestingly, I'm a minority in a Muslim majority country where the majority race is socially constructed, religion is mandated upon the muslim race by constitution, there's religious police (literally) - like they would break into your house if there are unwed couples alone, and this majority race also need to pay their version of tithes, with a large gov't agency managing it, billions of funds, and makes large LP investments. And like everything in my country, it comes with major corruptions. On top of that, for the longest time, political parties were race-based. It cannot get anymore obv than that lol. A lot of the muslims in my country are nice people, a lot of liberal muslims, but the way religion is enforced into law can be at the point of madness and people don't realise it And this is not a convo i can have in my country openly as there is no freedom of opinions - there are laws that can literally silence you into mandatory detention camps. So i do understand where you are coming from when it comes to abuse and misuse of religions