I don't buy the 'people need to be protected from things' argument.

I lived both eras.

Independent servers and self-modding were hands-down superior in terms of creativity and fun.

The current locked-box 'as the developers intended' version sucks in comparison.

And as referenced, its primary purpose is absolutely to enforce scarcity so that can be monetized.

Goatse in exchange for true ownership? Any day of the fucking week. My eyelids work, and I can close them myself.

You ran your own server within your group of (probably Internet-) friends and policed and banned players doing that kind of crap. A lot of the potential offense was limited by the low resolution of sprays anyway.

Game companies doing everything possible to turn every person into a gambling addict seems way more destructive than someone seeing a shock site.