I made a one time contribution. I hope there are other folks who benefit from such self hosted software that will give him a financial hand.
Also: sometimes, life is just brutal - admitting you actually do need help (and even moreso in such a public way) itself has to be rewarded and commended!
This may or may not be related to ethics, depending on what one calls or defines as ethics, but the reality is that free rides always carry a risk, even if there is no ethical obligation to pay for the ride. Of course, that depends on what value one gives to the code, and stuff like the cost of not being able to use it in the future due to lack of maintenance, or the cost of having to put in effort to maintain it oneself. But while there are no such ethical obligations tied to the use of some free software per se, imo there are ethics (or "ethics") tied to the interdepedencies and connections within such a social system in the sense of it being sustainable and able to self-perpetuate.
Even if the developer is a millionaire, it's proper to chip in a few bucks for free stuff that you use and enjoy. Sob story or no sob story.
But honestly, the real solution is for people to stop with this open source nonsense and start charging for their work. There are thousands of potential customers for every boutique app or code solution.
Nobody is entitled to free code, especially not the billion dollar companies who are the main beneficiaries of the hard work of open source programmers.