Imho you're missing the point.
Just like a blockchain, ENS generates revenue by design. Blockchains take transaction fees to safeguard its working, ENS take registration and renewal fees to ensure the protocol is usable long term. If either didn't take fees, they would not work.
This makes ENS is entirely distinct from other internet protocols like "Signal" or foundations like "Mozilla". They don't generate revenue based on their usage. The comparison with Mozilla is especially hilarious, since sadly they're doing a terrible job and Firefox is dying. 10 years ago they held over 30% market share, now they are below 3%.
For any revenue generating protocol you have to figure out where that money goes. When ENS was profitable, and all fees went to True Names this was the biggest valid critique of ENS. To become an internet level protocol you have to distribute these to the network enabling the protocols existence. BTC and ETH distribute it to those who run the network. What does this mean for ENS? ENS should distribute its revenue to those who enable users to interact with it in valuable ways.
Labs has been doing this quite badly for the last few years. There are almost no significant integrations, there are very few application level improvements. The main mechanism through which valuable integrations and applications are developed are through the Service Provider program. Labs doesn't like this, for obvious reasons. They see other teams as inefficient and bloated. Meanwhile they are bloated themselves. Most of the fees generated, actually MORE than the fees that the protocol generates are going to ENS Labs.
In the past the DAO has approved every budget request of ENS Labs, but their inefficiency is becoming obvious, raising the question whether that should be the case. For example, a budget of close to $10m/y was requested for the development and operation of a new L2, and there is no change to this even though that project is canceled. Why should the DAO continue to pay ENS Labs the requested amounts?
Instead of seeing things realistically and downsizing (there is much less to go around), Labs wants to increase its spending, and to ensure they are well funded for a long time, cut others out of the pool. This would bring us full circle back to the True Names non profit days, where one entity runs the entire protocol. For early development, and as long as the entity actually builds efficiently, that's fine, but it nullifies the notion of the protocol being internet scale, independent, and decentralized. The success of ENS would be limited by how well Labs executes, and how it is seen as such (!).
Decentralization story telling and branding matters: I and many others are excited about ENS as an unowned internet level protocol that by design will survive forever. If we're just paying a single entity (for profit or not), its brand as an internet protocol goes away. Integrations that would have happened don't happen. ENS dies a slow death.
Alternatives exists. True competition (everyone should be equal to the DAO, Labs should be an SP like any other), retroactive funding (don't fund things that have no proven value, do so retroactively), and general downsizing (lower spend across the board / redirect to actual value ads) can fix this. One of the best ideas in the last few years is the revenue share / referrals. Applications would be incentivised to implement best in class ENS integrations and drive ENS adoption because they are economically aligned with that happening. Nicks counter argument is that all this is unnecessary because users can just use the ENS App built by Labs. He is missing the point: ENS is valuable because integrations, not because the ENS app. And there are currently no incentives to build good integrations. Without more and better integrations, ENS dies a slow death.
ENS as a protocol (DAO) shouldn't spend significantly more than what it makes. It should only fund true value adds, when the value add is proven and there is actual ecosystem need for it. The mechanism to decide that should be a DAO. Even if friction is high. That's the point.
And most importantly: ENS must not loose its brand as an internet protocol vs a random non profit open source project that users have to pay for to use. It's like expecting a blockchain to work when all transaction fees go to one entity.