> 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.
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.
[1]: https://optifine.net/home [2]: https://www.pcgamer.com/best-minecraft-shaders/