I will go on knowledge gained from other, less popular genres as I am pretty new to the whole D&B scene...
I was always told, when I started out in production (as I said above it was another genre but it may still apply) to never start out looking to make money, which personally I feel isn't right anyway, people should do it for the scene and love of the music, not to solely make a living and for money making purposes.
I assume going digital is much cheaper, as their is no vinyl to press and sleeves to have printed. There is still the artwork and logo side of things to take into consideration, but you don't have to have it re-printed countless amounts of times.
That is my personal view mate, hopefully someone will contribute that actually has experience with Record Labels, the running of one, the cost and the money to be made side of things.