does PieFed having the classic "cover our monthly hosting costs" progress bar OG reddit used to have?
donating used to give you account gold (which didn't allow you to give awards) but still gave you access to extra features (like saved posts I believe)
since PieFed is open source maybe these could be tied to extra hosting capacity and not paywalling features? ie you donate X amount you get to upload Y amount more images/video to share on the instance?
I'd be weary of being able to pay to give others awards as that allows actors with more capital to sway conversations and astroturf a forum that's supposed to be democratic.