This all started way back in 2016 during the cookieclickerapocalypse. A player named KaguraMVP (AKA Kagaroo, or more correctly, Fagapoo, hes not around anymore, atleast that I know) created a cookie clicker server which got very popular. After that many rip offs arrived. That was the start of those "idle/grinding" servers.
The thing about those servers is that they are easy to play, to create, and they are addictive, which is key to have players. You may have 100 players joining those servers because of how easy it is to start, 80 quit out of boredom but 20 keep playing because they are addicted. Thats how it works.
Sadly this is currently the reality of minehut. In the past we had more variety of servers, people were less lazy you know? We had a somewhat different community, one that was less focused on worshiping staff and was more focused on having a good time and pwn sum scrubs on good warzone phoenix only.
About minehut consisting of young children, thats not entirely true, specially if you consider that minehut was around in 2015. Theres alot of players from that era that have grown up, I included (OK SURE I ONLY JOINED ON 2016 BUT SHHHH).
To get a good server working, you first need to forget having any player on your server for the first 2 weeks. You gotta focus on making one thing very well done, which will be the main concept of your server. There have been millions of different minehut servers in the past. All you gotta do is ask old players about great servers that were in the past, and make your own best with the ideas you get. You could do a RPG server, one that is not rushed but has atleast 5 different main areas with 50 lvl min. You could also do a cl****ic prison server, with guards and contraband weapons. You could also do a spleef based server with competitive playing. If you create a really good server and you dont give in, you will change minehut's mentality just like KaguraMVP changed when he created his cookie clicker server in the past. Look, another good server: Deathban, you get banned when you die. Trust me somehow this got alot of players in the past. There was this one server named Luuke, pure survival, had 20+ server constantly. Beans, a server where you have a big mine in the middle with ores but pvp is on, etc.
Someone gotta start changing, and if it isnt you then most likely no one will. You just gotta get the right information, right staff (or no staff at all, I did my servers all alone) and good ideas that dont necessarely have to be yours.