People have said l2 is dead for 15 years so yeah ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
People are still here because of nostalgia, not because "at some point in time, we saw greatness in Lineage 2", l2 is objectively a shit game these days but we played it when we were young and it's just nostalgia for the good old days.
Admins will always keep launching scam servers because it makes $$$, additionally if you make anything custom or innovative players won't join it, so no one is going to invest time and money into launching anything new and innovate in any way at all because you're punished for it in this community not rewarded.
Players will always join scam servers because they go where everyone else goes like giant flocks of sheep, the big clan leaders are paid by scam server admins to join their server, so then the players follow the clans, that's not going to change because it works, pay the clans and you get players which then gets you money.
There's no saving it, this is where we are now and that's it, nothing will change for the better because the community as a whole doesn't want anything better, if they did they'd do something about it.