Making it a paid service would be a disaster for such a great project. Have you considered going open source? All users of the steemsql could contribute to the further utilization and development of the project. I am sure there are plenty interested.
@geekgirl, thank you for your donation!!
Unfortunately, going open source won't help to reduce the cost of an infrastructure and its maintenance.
I fully agree with you. The blockchain already allows to share part of the posts reward with others. Thos who publish posts with data collected thanks to SteemSQL could use this option. Unfortunately, it is not available on the web client.
I like the sharing the post reward idea. As many of us using the tool for various purposes, and some even builing on top of, I think we can move forward in a more organized and supportive way so it is not much of a financial burden on you. May I even suggest creating a official steemsql account that can resteem all steemsql tagged posts, keep them in one place in organized manner. So users of the steemsql tool can easily access various tutorials, implementations, etc.
I did hear someone working on implementing it to steemit. It's sorely needed and would make collaboration so much easier!