I largely agree with where you are coming from and agree that there is enough intrinsic value in running a perpetual testnet that it should not be hard to have a large portion of the network ran by bakers and supporters. Hopefully the whole thing with a DAO holding the admin keys one day.
I don’t think things will start that way though and to guarantee the networks uptime and actually happening, I would not want to rely on volunteer validators. That means expenses in terms of machines and bandwidth.
There are also costs around dev time for customizing the code here and there and making adjustments.
I personally want to champion Laika as a risk free on-boarding tool for newcomers to crypto. That means paying devs to fork wallets, then that also means support etc… I think those things will pay for themselves via ads, donations and price action for Tezos, but not necessarily right away.
Maybe eventually a Laika DAO could amass enough donated Tez that it’s baking rewards pay for it’s operation.
