I think there are basically four categories of big spenders:

(1) People who don't understand that they are spending actual money. Kids can fall into this category. Also people who are confused by an intentionally obfuscated user interface.

(2) People who are spending someone else's money, so they don't care. Kids can also fall into this category. (And when they do they may pretend they are in category 1.)

(3) People who can't afford it but have some kind of compulsive shopping disorder, addiction to the game or spending, etc. (People in this category might pretend they are category 1, i.e. request a refund and blame it on children who might even be fictional.)

(4) People rich enough that they will feel no ill effect from dropping $1,000+ on something of little value.

Whales are, at least theoretically, presumed to be category 4. There really isn't too much of an ethical problem IMHO with category 4.

The real ethical problem comes from the fact that you don't truly know which category the user is in.

Anyway, I think you are talking about category 1 and the person you replied to is talking about category 4.

If #4 actually existed platforms and developers would put real prices in the games instead of obfuscate the transactions and currencies. This would make them the same as every online and brick-and-mortar shop, where children and adults alike are not inadvertently spending thousands of dollars stemming from a single small purchase but may do so with explicit consent.

There are definitely millions of #1 though, we know this because Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google have all been sued for the sheer volume of #1s they allowed/enabled to be defrauded.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/09/googl...

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/01/apple...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-classaction-idUS...

https://www.ftcadlaw.com/ftc-scores-big-win-against-amazon-i...