Could it be that the original freenode staff did not want to have anything to do with you in an operational manner? Whilst the financial contributions for legal defense always went a long way, not much else was needed, like the live events and freenode branded merch. Staff were not adequately informed as to how the sale went down. Later, I do not believe tomaw was trying to strongarm anyone into leaving, staff genuinely wanted nothing to do with the supposed crown prince of Joseon.

Ultimately, the people who invested their labor into the network felt like they had little control over the future of the project and felt like they had been rug pulled by christel so they left. They did not believe that it was christel's to sell. Ultimately, as soon as the original operators left, the new management have not necessarily left a great impression. For a while, freenode.net would just redirect to a subreddit? And then later it was a reddit clone of sorts? (https://web.archive.org/web/20220505184527/https://freenode....). Channels were taken over at will. There were somewhat dubious partnerships made, crypto products endorsed. The first blog posts made by the new management straight after the changeover were markedly different from the previous messaging - (https://web.archive.org/web/20210730233709/https://freenode....). The original freenode was doing its best to be a place where like minded people could collaborate and communicate without adding too much of a political sway or coloring anything, the freenode after the takeover did not aspire to do any such thing. If in May of 2021 one could've argued that the old staff were a tad too eager to leave, then the newcomers did everything in their power to prove them right in less than a month.

Please do fund FOSS stuff, it really helps. Just don't expect to buy yourself out of being cringeworthy.