Imagine the uproar in a game like GTA 5 if all currency was only generated at a fixed amount yearly, with the people who played in the first year or so owning almost all of it, and used that to upgrade their gear so that they were invincible to every other player. And even though they say they'll create 9.5%, 9%, 8.5%, and so on every following year, most of it goes to those early players. New players would riot if they found out they would never have a fair share of the generated currency!

I doubt it could keep a player base very long. I think we can find examples of this power-buying in games like some of the Chinese "f2p" p2w games that are designed to appeal to those with the biggest wallets. There's another interesting article on what it took for the top Clash of Clans player to maintain his rank, and that did NOT sound fun.

Developers have the option of catering to addicts and wealthy persons, sure, but if they're trying to make something genuinely popular then the game has to be fun for the average player, and a rewarding gameplay experience has to exist without the pay options. I'm glad lootboxes and microtransactions in games are coming under fire lately and people are finally starting to look at them differently.

Another thing about cash cows is, well, look at the games Rockstar released after GTA 5. And then look at the timeline for games they released before it. Just makes me lol. Same goes for how much energy Blizzard put into WoW, but at least they never made that game pay to win (just extreme on the extremest end of extremely addicting to play, still ruining countless lives by crippling your irl self).

Same goes for development teams in the software world getting huge lump sums of cash these days. Hand them too much cash with no requirements to improve the service and, well, I think you're going to wait a bit on those updates friend, as they're too busy enjoying their yachts.