Inflation means that hosting costs increase. On the site they also mention being under heavy scraper load which also isn’t free.

Then the writers probably also need compensation increase, at the very least to be a responsible employer so that the employees can deal with inflation.

Inflation happens regularly, normally, or when world leaders emit another chaos bomb, and they do not raise prices immediately causing a lower income/costs ratio. In order to keep up with that without raising the prices in between you need more income and that comes from more payers.