I do not condone p2w practices that impacts the performance, and competitive-fun factor of the game. microtransactions in general are fine if they are single player experience games. But the moment you introduce microtransactions that gives p2w advantages into a multiplayer game it automatically ruins the credibility of competition.
You can argue that some cash cow games like maplestory, or genshin impact are doing well. sure I would believe you for those niches. but the majority of games that have been tainted by some sort of loot box for advantage or microtransactions for advantaged games ruined their rep for competitive play and fairness. Halo, call of duties, runescape, a lot of EA games…, plants vs zombies.
That’s a whole thing in itself… but the fact these guys have to milk the player base to be able to run a dedicated server, or their own server. Is a setup that promotes, and encourages more predatory behaviors to the poor bastards that want a good experience in the server. That fact doesn’t jive well with me. I tried running a server myself and found that my server ended up being a fish in a wide ocean of p2w crap, and I just ended up shutting it down because there was no point in running a server when all these other flashy but really shtty servers overshadow what you have, or your attempts to make a experience good for people.