Think about the lack of advertising on nostr.
Like if nostr was Facebook or Twitter right now, a pretty portion of those users would seriously be willing to pay a micro transaction to remove all the advertisements.
People don't realise how good nostr is without ads because it never had them.
The people who would pay to remove ads from other social media, those people should all be willing to contribute to relays for an improved experience. But they probably wouldn't see the point because nostr already does not have ads.
I think the real issue is user friendliness.
I barely understand how to configure the relays, actually I don't even barely understand, I haven't bothered to learn yet.
The easier it gets for the common non tech users the easier it'll get for everyone else I think.