Civ RP is absolutely not dead, but....
Things need some improvement. The motivation is there, a recent example is Infinity Enterprises and the people behind that business. They are setting up events, planning and offering IC services for an affordable price (stuff that smaller businesses need like advertisements, posters, videos, etc...). The same is true with other businesses that open on a weekly basis.
But there is a need to streamline things and make it easier for these businesses to exist and operate.
We need business bank accounts. These were teased probably a year+ ago and nothing happened. It would be perfect to be able to separate personal wealth from business related income.
We need an F4 like system where people can pay 50,000$ (or whatever) to have access to basic tools like managing salaries, employees, roles, permissions for vehicles/properties, business bank account access, etc...
We need a way to make items (even if the effects are non-existent) as already mentioned above.
A server that wants to be a medium-high quality RP server needs to support civilian players and businesses, otherwise you're better off just calling this Eclipse Cops and Robbers.