Being mission driven and not getting distracted is nice, but that doesn't put money in their pockets. Firefox and other products that are/were beloved by similar crowd have been asking for donations for years and it hasn't worked out. Wikipedia seems like the rare exception that pulls it off, and that's because they're aggressive with their campaigning for cash and they're basically an indispensable public service at this point.
They say no ads (https://www.thekeyword.co/news/bluesky-says-it-has-no-plans-...). Seems like they will pivot to subscriptions (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278666/bluesky-working...). I remember reading somewhere they also wanted to add payments from user to user, so they could take a cut from that. If that is enough to cover their expenses is left to be seen.
https://www.blockchaincapital.com/blog/bluesky-13m-users-and...