With the way Gold can pay for Game Time, WoW pays for itself. At least for me. Others buy Gold with Cash, so that is their issue. But for me, casual WoW play can pay for itself.
I am a Casual Raider type. I field about 5 or so Characters that raid heroic or normal. I don’t do M+. In the past month, I sold 1 Heroic BoE and 4 Normal BoE’s. That was enough Gold for two months of Play time. And that is just BoEs. Never mind the other ways to get Gold.
WoW has fun Casual Raiding and Casual PvP. But it also has more hard core scenes for both. And the Warcraft franchise has some good stories. It is essentially free to play with a bit of in game effort. So it is worth it. I might reconsider if I didn’t have enough Gold to buy Game Time, or if they removed the option to buy Game Time with Gold.