It's not like there aren't other P2P live service games (can't think of any with dedicated server hosting but there's no reason it couldn't work the same). They verify your content with 1 server the devs host, and then it scoots you off to the actual game server which could be hosted by anyone.
Edit: Actually isn't that how Minecraft Realms work, kinda? You don't physically host it, but you can do whatever you want with it and it still works with the store content and such. I've never messed with one, personally so I'm not 100% sure. Only the Java version server.
Of course, those could also be modded and have more ways around verifying legit content you paid for allowing you to have everything for free, and that's what they don't want.