Not all that comfortable with the way this thread is evolving. I understand the precepts of small business, start-ups, promotions, etc..
I dont feel it's necessary or necessarily prudent to question Lamont's clearly stated, long time policies on "vending" w/out being a sponsor, asking for special standing for someone or putting him in a position where he feels required to defend himself and/or the integrity of the site. In short, it's his business, he operates it fairly and it is of tremendous value to the Spyder community.
In any endeavor it's always tough to make everyone happy. To create a level field and maintain decorum and civility it's important to have concise, comprehensive criteria by which management, users and vendors interact. All businesses started as one person operations. In order to grow the business, investments in time, talent and treasury were made somehow, to some degree, for some duration. Some businesses are more capital intensive than others. Some are financed using the owners' life savings, some have outside investors and/or venture capital opportunities and some simply don't make it at all for a variety of reasons.
It's totally within Lamont's judgment and authority on how to operate SL. If a business wants to profit from the members it ought to be required to pay the going rate. If members want to donate money to SL, fine. If the members want to help a business, one way would be to allow the donated funds to be put aside and used as venture capital or gap financing or whatever to help out a small business pay the costs of doing business on SL. To do otherwise is totally unfair to the businesses that have paid the going rate. Just MHO.