Starting a server

Hi all. So Ive recently become interested with the idea of hosting my own server(s) and was hoping to have a few questions answered if possible. This is a new idea and Im just trying to gather some more information on the topic. Does anyone have any experience with this? How much do people actually make from it? What are the upside's, downside's? Does it require a lot of effort/time?

Im currently doing my homework on the subject but I was hoping to actually talk to someone with some RL experience with it, and I love Tom's forums so I had to ask here first Thanks to anyone that can help me out, or if you might know of a decent website that has some more info Id MUCH appreciate it!

A server can be many things. What type(s) were you looking to host?

Just dont make a proxy server. Hackers will sniff that thing out in 30 minutes then either a DDoS or some illegal porn will fly through your network.......

A server is a dedicated machine that does "work". There are many types of work. Figure out what work you want, then you can decide how to design your server.