That’s not something to fear in my mind because that’s already the case to begin with. There are already web service providers who operate as a business. Not just the little ones like Pagecord, but also the big ones like Blogger (owned by Google), which came up on here recently, and Wordpress (owned by a billionaire). I’ve even seen someone say that using Squarespace counts as indie web as long as you rent your domain name. And of course there’s domain name registrars themselves, who are paid-only and don’t give out anything for free. So that’s already the situation we’re in.
Trying to envision a worst case scenario, I suppose we could anticipate that a sudden increase in demand might embolden service providers to jack up their prices. I don’t know how to evaluate the likelihood of that.
As for watering down the subculture… I think the indie web as a social phenomenon is already quite fragmented, for better or for worse. I even got a comment on my post from someone who had never heard of the indie web being defined by domain names before.
Unfortunately I think what this illustrates is that it’s important not to think of fandoms in terms of moral affiliation or ideology. At the end of the day, being a fan is just about feeling strongly about stuff. Doesn’t guarantee that they’ll treat others right.