The issue seems to be that every time one of these new servers gets announced, they present themselves as ethical and above it all, then realize they can't do everything themselves. The type of people to volunteer help to the project want something out of it, whether it's money or 'power'.
Without the ability to charge for the server and give staff an incentive, the amount of quality volunteers will remain limited and we're going to see the same thing over and over. Why would you want to answer tickets from 80IQ poors arguing over claims all day if you didn't get anything out of it? Why would you want to work with LSB's codebase and try to address technical debt that's approaching the age of the ffxiv migrants? The amount of people who will do this solely for the sake of providing a fun experience to others is small to nonexistant.
It doesn't help that they're all ran by complete narcissists who can barely even code themselves. Again, comes back to the same issue: if they aren't being paid, why would they do it? In this case, it's so Aerec can LARP as Aerec-P and pad his own ego while giving his friends inside info and telling everyone else to play and find out.
Eventually, yes, retail will shut down. Eventually, there will probably be a private server that treats things professionally and funds itself in a sustainable way(and people will complain about that, too). But, Horizon isn't likely to be that server. On the bright side, LSB continues to evolve and improve, so interest in the current trendy private server increases eventual quality of the one that will last.