I use to be more against GameShops/Donations back when less people used dedicated servers as it cost nothing to run it, usually it was run on a spare PC someone had, but next to nobody runs them on a home PC now.
That being said, the cost of the dedi's aren't as much as some other games.
And from my point of view, now after developing for another game before, I wouldn't want to waste my own free time and get moaned at by players without getting something in return.
There has been and always will be, servers coming up to make a quick buck, that will never stop, usually you can tell those apart within the first week of being online.
What I think of a successful server is, longevity and a more balanced server towards the non-paying players and the paying players, there will always be that gap but if a server/game is done right, there should never be that much difference between the two.
Prior to working with the Affinity team, when I was developing for another game, I tried my best to give the free players just as much as the paying players, everything that was in the cash shop was accessible some way or other without paying (minus the cosmetic stuff which holds no true meaning other than looking 'cool'), you can't really do that with Mir however so it's a difficult one to tackle in those terms.