That will be hard if parents see headlines about "Minecraft" (no, the specific server host won't matter) being used to exploit or otherwise prey upon children and stop buying it.

You make it sound like it's an alien concept that only us techies understand, but it is actually quite a mainstream understanding that once you legally buy a thing then whatever illegal stuff you do with it is a responsibility of law enforcement and not whoever made and sold you that thing. What is alien here is this belief that intentional remote crippling of a product with no court order or anything is somehow even legal

Anyway. If you follow the money real threat to MS bottom line is not losing a 30 bucks one time per household but having people prefer the more moddable, unlockable OG version that the cool kids are playing (JE) over recurring revenue cash cow (bedrock).