@GodGinrai @kronix Yes, I used "most" because I myself
know people and groups who do want to make money off of scanlating. The better term for those of us who don't would be non-profit I guess. We do these scanlations to spread the manga we like to other people, and to read them ourselves too (I always read them as I work on it). Most of us aren't bots just scanlating whatever is new; this is why some JP manga, despite a lot of traction and interest from readers, aren't necessarily being scanlated because unless someone who
actually scanlate manga takes interest, no one will bother doing it. There is a reason why some groups ask the fans for their next manga to work on: because otherwise, they would just keep doing whatever manga they like. The same thing applies to visual novels and any medium that has fans doing the localization: either wait for the official translation or just hope some fan scanlators take interest/listen to the readers.
Saying donations make money is like saying charities are for profits; anyone can choose to donate or not. It's not like the chapters are behind a paywall (i.e. pay-to-read) which would force you to pay. I can talk more about it but this isn't the place. Main point: donations are to make up to the cost of purchasing raws as Ginrai said. We don't make any penny doing this except just choosing to do it. You can support us to maintain our raws and server cost (if the group has a website with a domain of their own) or not to, no one will force ya.
As for the people and groups who make their "donation" a bigger part than their manga... well that should be obvious. If you look carefully at the credit page and the quality of any manga you read next time, you can differentiate between the ones who do it because they love the manga and sharing the works vs. the people who are only in it for the money. They can't fool anyone other than themselves and the clueless readers.