Corollary: do you hate Gitlab becoming bloatware and integrated suites? Then pay them! Even if you only use their open source offering, pay them. And not just "pity money" like 100 USD per year, but really pay them as if they're a serious commercial software vendor.
Yeah I know people won't do that. But think about this for a second. It does not apply only to Gitlab but to lots of independent open source software vendors too.
How is that going to solve anything? The more you pay them the more bloated version you're going to get. In fact, if you want to travel lite the community edition is actually your best choice there.
The item it would solve is that if you "pay" then you can more directly influence their road-map. As a customer they want you to be happy and to remain one, that gives you the ability to influence direction. Individually, it may not be a lot, but in aggregate customers have power.
Yeah I know people won't do that. But think about this for a second. It does not apply only to Gitlab but to lots of independent open source software vendors too.