I don’t want economies, I want kids to have genuine, self-directed creative outlets. At best today Roblox is baby’s first hustle culture.

You're kidding right?

Having "Robux" instead of the imaginary karma random forums, or the points different game portals had, or literally just the grind for downloads some people had somehow dashes the incredible stuff kids are inventing for play by other kids?

Kids will not somehow be ruined by having an outward reward for the creativity. It doesn't work like that.

Just to clarify, I don't mean that kids are not programming or making games in whatever form, just that they might not care to do so on a frozen-in-time TI calculator as much as used to be the case, so the "silver lining" of an unnecessarily expensive TI calculator being a child's first programming environment might not really exist anymore. As you say, kids have many other options today.