I’ve been happy with the tp link TV-IP324PI, it’s a Poe bullet cam with a simple web interface (I don’t think it requires JS, but at any rate you just need to log in once to set a password, make sure upnp is off, and adjust camera/encoding/fps/text overlay settings to your liking). There’s also the amcrest IP5M-B1186EW-28MM, another similar Poe bullet cam with night vision that works local only. I’ve used both for several years and I think they support onvif but I had no issues using the rtmp url with zoneminder
From the related post linked by op, it’s described as just a portion of the managed instance hosting fee going back to the project devs. So if you pay them to host a lemmy instance, a small cut goes to Lemmy devs. Doesn’t seem sketchy at all. Seems to have nothing to do with monetizing the instance itself, which could be funded by voluntary donations as normal or you could probably do membership fees as some instances do. It seems this is just about giving funding to the software devs. Hopefully this encourages other managed hosting providers to also give a cut of their revenue to the software they are using for their business.