Game Hosting for Profit

I've played on tons of game servers over the years and inevitably you almost always see something along these lines "VIP Slot. Become a supporter of Super Awesome Game Hosts and get priority when joining a full server!".

I've seen it in games like Rust, Arma, 7 Days to Die, Minecraft (the big one), and many many others. A lot of the times I look at the server requirements for someone to run a 200 person Rust server and it would be upwards of $100 a month. I've never been one to pay for it, but the fact the servers exist (and most games monetization strategies now) leads me to believe that apparently SOMEONE is paying for it at the very least.

One server I see just doing a quick search is $18 a month for VIP for all their servers. If that's too much they have a $7 option for only one server at a time.

Do any of you pay for special privileges in privately hosted servers for games?

Is anyone running a business doing this that I could ask a few questions?

I've been an engineer for a few years now and I'm confident I could get them up on some hosting platform pretty quick. I just always worry that I'd not have the right incentives, or people would just decide my server wasn't worth paying to get into.