Pretty much every product sold in our society has its' design shaped by the need to make money (i.e capitalism).
I'm not sure why you're singling out F2P games here specifically, relative to all the other half-baked crap designed to make a profit.
At least hundreds of millions of people daily get value out of playing free games without spending a cent. Consider the fact that all console/PC gamers have spent money on the game up-front, whereas a very small proportion of people on mobile pay for all of the rest.
Like, I don't enjoy games with micro-transactions, but clearly lots of other people do. Who am I to judge their fun?
Mindlessly grind medallions or whatever. The problem with IAP games (free or not, afaik a Dead Space game was selling ingame crafting materials as IAPs) is they waste your most precious resource: time.
> And trailers and reviews were famously broken for console/PC games historically.
Oh but that's easy. Don't preorder and don't buy games based on just one review. Especially don't buy games based on the developer's trailers :)
Like, I mostly agree with you on the quality of many (maybe most) F2P games, but FIFA wastes your time far more than Candy Crush (and indeed, the people who buy sports games every year seem very strange to me).
Us HNers are a dying breed, a lot of people don't have computers any more, or when they have them they use them only when absolutely necessary.
Wasting time is sort of the point.