The problem with cash shops is how very poorly development games still make money, thus have very little incentive to actually improve base designs.
There will always be those who buy cosmetics. Always. Rich and poor.
And they will make a few million from this sale. Easily. But nothing will change.
Season 1 was a massive dumpster fire. Simple key improvements, such as additional stash tabs weren’t even added. In S2, all they are adding is 1 gem tab. And yet, they’ve grabbed MILLIONS of dollars from cash shop.
So why should they make actual appropriate changes to the game, when there will always be whales that will offset all player count drops just by cash shop?
That’s the problem with cash shop.