When you needed an electron card to avoid the fee, you could at least apply for one without having to pay any fees to maintain the bank account. But there is no such thing as a totally fee-free pre-paid Mastercard - they all attract some form of setup / usage / monthly fee.
Dunno as have a prepaid MC with a utility company that saves me between 3-7% back on anything I spend with them with their partner retailers and while a £1 a month fee and 35p per top up sounds extortionate the £40-50 per month rebate with people like M&S / Sainsburys etc etc kind of outweighs the charge.
Nobody forces anybody to book with FR.