[jrockway]

Minecraft is incredibly popular and it's normal to run your own server. (It's the 5th most-watched game on Twitch; at 81,000,000 hours per month!) I don't play, so I can't authoritatively say there is no company that provides "default" servers that new clients log into, but I've never heard of such a thing.

(If you look at the other popular games on Twitch, they all provide servers and can't self host. GTA V, Fortnite, LoL, CoD, Valorant, etc. So there is no market for anything but Minecraft-related services.)

[meowface]

And perhaps more significantly, DDoS attacks against Minecraft servers are extremely common. There's a massive market dedicated purely to DDoSing Minecraft servers.

In addition to its popularity, I would guess that this is probably related to the fact that the average age of Minecraft players is probably lower than the average age for most other popular online games. A disgruntled person between the age of 12 - 18 who knows they can completely shut down the fun-having ability of everyone they're pissed off at for a few dollars per hour will often feel pretty tempted.