I’ve always assumed that Microsoft was to some degree hitting two (or more) birds with one stone with MSFS. The amount of technology and data I presume they are gaining access to through their various partnerships is probably not just meant to benefit the sim crowd, it’s probably also for Bing and any mapping/photogrammetry/AI work Microsoft does, especially since they are using Azure AI in conjunction with all of that. This might mostly be a huge proof of concept for future tech that they can partially fund through retail sales.
That said… I’ll happily pay for a DLC if it’s good. After all, I paid for the Acceleration pack in FSX IIRC. This wouldn’t be the first time there is paid content beyond third party. And I’ll always happily buy good third party content.
When MSFS was first announced there was a fair bit of speculation that it would be a purely subscription model, and I had already made peace with that, so I’m already over the moon with the payment model they went with.