Its sad how Minecraft has become one of the rare games that where you can host your server without going through a centralized service. This used to be the standard, and not an exception.
I’m not sure if this counts as a centralized server in your eyes, but many popular games on Steam offer dedicated servers in both Windows and Linux.
I think all of the Linux ones require steamcmd, but personally I’ve hosted (in no particular order) Terraria, 7DtD, Cryofall, Don’t Starve, Ark, and more. It’s usually pretty simple and decently documented, as well.
I think the problem here is that most people only know AAA games. There’s a thriving indie market(which Minecraft used to be a part of) that the average person knows very little about. At least I get that impression from non-gaming parts of social media and people I know irl.
