For me it was the opposite - I was quite happy to pay, but didn't have enough control of, or visibility into, what was going on on the server.

I set up a minefold instance for my daughter and her friends to play on, having previously spent time setting up and maintaining a custom server for her and her friends. Unfortunately, disputes between kids tend to escalate into all out war unless you can monitor and keep a lid on things, so Minefold wasn't the answer either.