Nah, that's a false narrative companies would like you to believe-that they NEED to implement these paywalls. I know running a server costs money but these are rich folks and to them, money is no object. They look at this stuff and think "Eh I dunoooo" because they aren't satisified until they can make as much money as humanely possible.
I mean, really-the PS3 had it free, and the Nintendo switch has had it free for it's first year because of nintendo dragging their feet. Do you really think the baffling, incompetent, overly generous move to allow customers to use a basic feature of their console without an extra payment has just TOTALLY run their company dry?
Also, yes I don't play mmorpgs like that, but why would I? I don't buy trials for games, if it's 60$+ I want it for good.