I run a RPG server with quests, factions, nations and more, and so far I've been able to pay for it with donations. Although we are a small comunity, the few who donated let the server to keep going. But its true that old days in minecraft used to be better. Many people just start their own server, making communities split and split. I've built my server with a lot of effort planning on having quite a good amount of people, having different nations, classes, guilds, with war, trade and all that stuff. But its still fun with the few people we have, but it could be better.