someone on Nostr: "A middle-ground method that seems to be beginning to work at scale is the idea of ...

"A middle-ground method that seems to be beginning to work at scale is the idea of distributed servers or 'relays'. In this model, not every user has to run a server, but individual servers are relatively easy to run, are financially incentivized to be run, and are therefore numerous enough that there is no way to control or censor the network."

Relays are run for fun nowadays. Most don't have proper funding. Donations could be an option. If clients start doing ads I think client devs then can make some donations from their earnings. Relays can't insert ads - the protocol is not suitable as far as I understand.