Not super into keyboards, but maybe something like this? https://www.keychron.com/collections/custom-keyboards/products/keychron-q12-qmk-custom-mechanical-keyboard#

A sub $200 card with AV1 encoding/decoding does sound like an interesting possiblity.

Seems like an odd direction when a lot services are moving online and to SaaS based solutions, removing the dependency of a specific underlying OS.

Seems like a reasonable position? If your goal is a safe welcoming community, cutting users who do not fit that initiative makes sense. If someone is racist or insulting, regardless of if they have donated or you see an influx of people with similar ideals, it is against the goals and objectives of the instance and the community they wish to foster. So, cutting them off seems appropriate.

Yes.

I think Jisti does all of those things. Essentially a self hostable zoom. Audio, video, screensharing and text chats.