I'm sure that some people would continue to run crypto nodes if it was not profitable, but the number of people doing so would drop precipitously. There's a hug

I'm sure that some people would continue to run crypto nodes if it was not profitable, but the number of people doing so would drop precipitously. There's a huge portion of the crypto community (90%? 95%?) that are in it for the ROI and speculative gambling, not for running a decentralized web. As an example, I suspect no one would buy old power plants and turn them into Bitcoin miners if there was no return on investment. The operating costs of this kind of infrastructure are too high to justify as a "hobby".