I agree also, I for one would be willing to pay to play if they would get better servers. A reasonable fee of $10 a month. It would keep away the non serious player and speed things up.
I have 100 MPS Fiber and its ten to fifteen seconds for anything to respond. If this gets worse I'll have to play elsewhere.
Therein lies the AE "problem". I concur with the logic that a pay for play model obviously "invests" a player. The free AE model can be lauded for being free---yet if I'm recalling correctly a period existed wherein a player could pay to purge any advertising (does that still exist)? However a player can't pay for anything useful, such as greater bandwidth. My apologies to the poster above you...AE4 isn't a reality. Take a look at the "Slow Constant Expansion" thread!!! Some solid suggestions....and also the "bait" threads regarding Improvements/What a Player "Wants". Unfortunately those are simply words. AE is perhaps the apex web-based Airline Strategy game....it is also riddled with bugs and probably running on 10-15 year old servers from back in the Miller22 days. It is what it is & will stay what it is. I guess Yuxi is the "Pope of AE" yet he should just be the Ambassador----his role appears to be closing forum threads, making certain "trophies" are awarded, and restarting AE Worlds with a "Good luck & have fun!!!" salutation. A pool of players willing to pay to play exists----BUT, seriously---$120 per year to play on this ancient platform & be subjected to all the know bugs that have gone unresolved. Burning the cash would be more practical/logical.