Copy pasta from something else I wrote, hope this answers your question:
Now, Minehut's current marketing strategy, while not great, isn't the worst either. Because they're a “free server host” (lol try and make an SMP on the free plan) they can hook a lot of people on that ideology. Most people then realize they need to buy a server plan to even have a decent experience (get more plugins, be able to build large farms without the server TPS dying, and so on), but as there's no way to download server files easily and world downloading is a pain in the butt
(until the new system comes out, which looking at Minehuts' track record will take another 5 months or so).
There is one more thing that Minehut has that almost no other server host has, a community. Whether it be in the skript channel at midnight, the meta discord, or the amazing lobby discussions that have "<!> minehut.com <!> free server host <!>" between every line, the community is here for us. While a lot of people may hate those ads as well as the #servers channel on discord, the constant stream of players from ads and the lobby board and the "join random server” button and the discord is one of the huge reasons why servers are on Minehut when they become big.
But back to the “roasting” now. Those two reasons (and maybe one or two more that | can't think of} are the main reasons why
people even use Minehut. The fact that Minehuts' “better than other hosts" context can be summed up to lobby ads and a good hook to bring in new players, is kinda sad ngl.