I was talking about the ability to simply play games that I already purchased online. Game Pass was a different paragraph and context.
If you really think Microsoft or Sony requires this yearly subscription fee to keep the service running, just look at equivalent PC services like Steam (or, you know, Xbox Live online play, which is free on PC) and realise how wrong you are. Microsoft and Sony get a big chunk of game sales (30%+), they are fine.
Actual game servers are hosted by the game publisher, not by Microsoft or Sony (unless it’s a first party title, of course). Publishers don’t get a single piece of the subscription.