Most of the arcades still around charge by the hour or have a day pass.
It’s good if you want to try a lot of games in a short time, but if you’re good at a particular game...not so much.
Things like Xbox game pass let you play games like you would pay to watch movies etc on Netflix.
I still prefer to buy the games I play, but the monthly fee to play 100 games on rotation is a nice deal.
Growing up, most of my friends had less than 10 games at any given time, and only 1 or 2 was a newer title.