Then the OP definitely does not want anything like that, since they said that they hate the idea of building a business around a free API. I think you're mistaken here.
The problem with building a business around a free API from a for-profit company is the rugpull. As a sibling comment mentions, even a paid API can get rugpulled. But I think that what the OP was trying to contrast a free API from a for-profit company with was actually an API from a non-profit company. A non-profit can run forever if it's just breaking even, and is sharing IP, so other people can jump up and replace it if they fail, and you might even be able to install it on your own servers.
edit: I'm not a big Mastodon booster (or even liker), but if you build your business around it, it would be nuts because the customer base is of course tiny at this point, but you run very little management risk from the Mastodon project itself. Whereas your relationship with twitter can be changed on a day to day basis, unilaterally.
The problem with building a business around a free API from a for-profit company is the rugpull. As a sibling comment mentions, even a paid API can get rugpulled. But I think that what the OP was trying to contrast a free API from a for-profit company with was actually an API from a non-profit company. A non-profit can run forever if it's just breaking even, and is sharing IP, so other people can jump up and replace it if they fail, and you might even be able to install it on your own servers.
edit: I'm not a big Mastodon booster (or even liker), but if you build your business around it, it would be nuts because the customer base is of course tiny at this point, but you run very little management risk from the Mastodon project itself. Whereas your relationship with twitter can be changed on a day to day basis, unilaterally.