renaissance poisson

No, no--basically, you can get an account through an invite or paying. But accounts do not have to be paid, there is a free level. The business plan is for 5% of accounts to be paid to support the service.

Anybody can open communities. Communities will be able to have paid accounts, and we are looking into good paid community features. (We are also improving the community experience for maintainers all across the board, by allowing them to do things like add lj-cuts to posts.)