Hayday is a well designed game. As its cooperative, rather than trying to smash your opponents you try to work with people. There are competitive elements, like the Derby, but they arent compulsory if you want to grow your farm more casually.
Yes some things take a long time to make or grow, but thats what diamonds are for. If you want to pay you can speed up any part of the game.
Possibly my favourite part of the game is the lack of advertising. Most freemium games arent games at all, they are ad servers pretending to be games. Most games have ads that hijack your screen the moment you start the app, then hit you with random full screen ads constantly, and even have ad banners running at the bottom of the screen. Not Hayday. You dont have to look at ads, but if you do you are rewarded for it.