1500 KMD @ 3.90 = 5850 USD at todays prices, and this is AFTER recent crash .... and another guy does the work. Even if you paid that guy 2K USD a month, you're making ~1000 USD a week - who reading wouldn't want this deal? No risk, no stake, no (compulsory) work.
Don't underestimate the effort required to keep a notary up and running, and it's only going to increase as more assetchains come online with dICO's. We need reliable nodes, and if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. I hope the pendulum doesn't swing too far the other way, Yes, there are some guys sitting back making good money today who pay a manager to run their node, but early adopters always get those amazing deals, like mining bitcoins in 2010-11.
If we drive down compensation for running notaries too far, and break things, it's actually worse than having a few early adopter fat cats creaming off the profits.
Power is in the hands of KMD owners, guys running nodes for other people will just stand for election themselves now, only whales can afford to pay a node manager, everyone else needs to win votes by doing good deeds and campaigning. Inactive early adopter who aren't whales have no future, maybe one last year for top 30 who don't run this time.
When KMD make next ATH @ +10$ notary earnings are +15k per month, that attracts a lot of attention, running a node isn't coding, just server admin.