Honest question - how much is it really? Not sure why you guys wouldn't publicly say how much you're paying people to play.
We've never paid anyone to play Rust. We purely facilitate drops for community-run events, we work closely with the organisers, and everyone who receives a drop has prior agreed to Stream Rust, work with community skin makers, approve their skins. We pay the server development fees incurred, which are paid out to community developers.