The DHF should be more like a lending bank than a grant-giving charity !
I also see it like that. The fact that money is given without any counterpart is first not fair towards all the people who don't get it and it's also not providing a good incentive. A project can argue that it needs DHF money only as long as development is ongoing. Where is the motivation to offer a finished product?
So perhaps an answer instead of charging a fee would be to use delegations; a user would delegate funds, and in return would receive credits (maybe a Tribe Token) which they spend to use the service.
That's a good idea. We basically have plenty of options in this respect. It could be delegation, it could be monthly payments, or paid to go. I mean we have the infrastructure in place.
When I see a front-end like peakd or ecency that allow me to create posts, interact and actually earn money, I wouldn't be totally abnegated to pay for their service.