I agree that reducing the rates will reduce the burden of the admin however, I feel that the admin should have not changed the old earnings of the members. The rate for the future may be reduced and for that the members should not have any complaints. But then for old earnings there should not be any change.
Since the site is doing well and getting advertisements, the admin may not like to stop paying and so he has kept this "token" rate. But I think that the activity on MMK will reduce drastically and that will also affect the advertisements on the forum to reduce the earning of the admin.