Sorry, but to host a small community on a v-server costs you today 3,50€ - 15€/month, when you can't pay that, you have other problems than the dying internet. It's not 1990 anymore...

Small community, yes. If you want to replace a site on the scale of Discord or Facebook? It does get really expensive.

Having everyone pay in is one strategy. But we have 30 years of people used to free and open mass communication. How many will give that up for proper freedoms and protection from state actors?

Heck, it almost always seems like people give up freedoms whenever push comes to shove, no matter the industry or timeline.