It's a Java applet, so it runs everywhere, but due to the migration from minecraft.net accounts to Mojang accounts, and the second migration from Mojang to Microsoft accounts, a lot of people lost access to the game.
> Making a server is surprisingly terrible for such a ‘mature’ game.
The official Minecraft server software is exceptionally unoptimized, but a number of independent open source forks exist, some of which can substantially improve performance. Unless you're talking about maintaining the community aspect, which is definitely not so easy... :)
For anyone getting into Minecraft for the first time, be sure to check out the mod Optifine [1]. A substantial portion of the Minecraft community uses it for its UI and performance improvements to the base game. It also allows the use of custom shaders [2], which totally change the feel of the game by adding realistic effects like long shadows, wavy water, and swaying plants. I personally stick with the base game's appearance, but shaders can be really fun for exploring caves and other places with unique lighting.
I don't see why it can't be as easy as Multiplayer -> Host -> Select World. The average player shouldn't need to download a server jar, accept a eula, edit the config, run the jar with command line arguments for ram allocation, and set up port forwarding just to play block game with their friends.
It is that easy, if you're willing to pay Microsoft a monthly fee. If not, then you can also use the open to LAN button on any world, but that will also require port forwarding.
I agree that playing online is terrible and there's really not a great excuse for how bad it is but there are options that aren't quite as bad as setting up and hosting a Java edition server.
1. If you're on the same network, you can select "open to LAN" in the menu once you load into a world and it'll give you a port so anyone on your network can play in your world with you as if it's a multiplayer server. This is nice for playing with family.
2. Minecraft Realms is Mojang/Microsoft's first party solution to the problem where you pay $8 /month for essentially a private server but with some stricter rules and easier ui.
3. Now we're getting into the weeds but if you want to set up a server on your local machine but don't have admin access to your router to set up port forwarding (as is the case for many young people), there are some free tunneling services you can use like Hamachi. You'll need everyone who wants to play on the same tunnel and then they can connect to a locally hosted server as if it's online.
The remaining options are the obvious ones of setting up port forwarding so you can host a public server from your home and renting a server from a third party provider, many of which have Minecraft instances you can spin up pretty easily.
If you want to play online with friends on Bedrock Edition, the more popular multi-platform version of the game, I think it's actually pretty easy but I don't play that edition much anymore so I can't be sure.
It genuinely does make me really upset though that young people who don't have parents willing to pay monthly fees can't easily play Java edition with their friends. Plenty of other games let you host a public server on your own machine. I don't see why they wouldn't implement this except that it costs them money bydepopularizing Realms. It's honestly really sad and goes against the original spirit of the game.
I don't think Microsoft has much incentive to make creating servers easier than it is; there would be somewhat less incentive for players to buy Realms if setting up a server was just a click.
