Firstly, the current survival SkyBlock mode has no real end-game goals, it isn't to create massive farms to sell and make money- that's the economy server. All of the survival-type gameplay is modified as if you were playing on an economy server, with none of the benefits. There's no villager trading, even though it wouldn't be profitable to sell their trades anyways. There's no lava generation, even though the main survival use of lava is furnace fuel. You can't make a dirt profit by making course dirt, neither can you grow Azalea trees on moss to create rooted dirt. The whole survival experience is instead based around a smaller grass block economy, but still based around an economy. All of the before mentioned(besides villager trading) is gated behind grass block currency. How do you get more grass blocks? Can't farm them, can't trade for them, you can vote daily and gamble. So what's the current goal then? Not falling into the void? Currently as it exists(5/14/2024) the survival SkyBlock experience is economy rules and restrictions, but no economy gameplay or perks. Instead the Current Survival mode needs a clear cut off from the economy server, with benefits and rule adjustments that provide a reason why you'd want to play the survival server. Allow players to create lava generators, allow villager trading, allow dirt creation and grass collecting, but remove the player shops. You want help? Play co-op, play with friends! Create massive community islands together, but no more between island trading. Nothing from Survival can be brought to Economy, and nothing from Economy can be brought to Survival. Want Grass block currency to stick around? Make it so the challenge awarded and vote awarded Grass blocks are named and colored(preferably with nbt tags) so that Survival collected grass can't be used in spawn shops. The Spawn island doesn't have to be changed hardly at all in this case, and people still have access to otherwise impossible difficult to gather building blocks. This is all to say, that the goal of Survival should be not centered around an economy with a lot of rules and restrictions, but instead should be focused around vanilla gameplay in a void world, where every block will be placed with purpose. The freedom to choose how you play will be why people play Survival, the restrictions, rules, and money printing cocoa bean farms will be why people play Economy.
I have no problem trading through chest shops to gain grass blocks. There are many players that run shops much larger than mine and do pretty well.
