I totally understand that it makes no sense as a business decision, but I am only talking about the extreme cases. You are totally right about apps like Facebook, but wasting time is one thing, but wasting money for most people is more devastating. On Plants Vs Zombies, there really isn't a reason to spend $1000s of dollars, from what I can tell (I only played it for a week or so). Some of these games lure middle class people into spending $1000s of dollars, and the way it happens is very gradual and deceptive. I've lost money on the stock market before with options contracts (so I know the feeling of loosing big) and the feeling of spending money on some of these games feels the same way once you look back on what you spent after a few months or a year. People who never played these games are quick the judge, but once you click download (or get) and open, you are facing a product that was masterfully designed to suck as much money as possible from you by thousands of professionals who work day and night just to "get you".
Plants Vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time is one of the better freemium games out there. After they did away with the "randomly generated keys" first introduced back in 2013/14, the game became much more playable since you can just unlock the next world the normal way (without grinding nor spending real money). You can get to the very end without spending any real money, and having even a modest amount of gold (in-game, non-premium currency) to help you out in those few, tight spots.
However, the latest thing they added were leveling up plants. To me, that just takes the cake. And they're effective too. For example, you would normally never pit a single Pea-Shooter against a Bucket Head Zombie, nor Gaurgantor. However, you get to preview the Pea-Shooter at the max lv20. It takes only 2 shots to kill the former, and about 8 shots to do the latter in (a 9th for the Imp that it launches). Problem is if you do the math and projections:
1) Despite getting to try out a level 20 plant, the plants currently max out at lv5 to lv7 or so. Even if you wanted to get to lv20, you'll have to wait
2a) Getting to lv2 is quick enough, but the progress required goes up in some triangular fashion. So it may take 3x, 8x, or 20x as much grinding for those packets (which fills up the leveling up bar).
2b) On top of that, filling up that meter means you can level up, but AFTER paying gold. The gold cost goes up in some sort of triangular/exponential fashion too
AFAI could tell, it'd take 8 months of full time playing just to level up the plants "high enough". Not worth it.
It's ironic that when content needs to be paid for, you wish you could've gotten if for free, like how some of the premium plants cost real $$. OTOH, there are times where I wish I could pay real money, as here, doing so could've meant they won't need to keep nickel and diming you in money and grinding in other areas.
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If we really want Apple to stop this (along with similar games on Android), then the only way really would be to push for laws against them, and apply similar regulations as gambling, tobacco, and alcohol, to here as well. However, I doubt the law would really go for this, and I'm sure Apple would fight it.
Not to get too far off topic, but if there's one thing I'd like to see fixed... is to make regulations to curb back all the freaking sugar that's in our food. Sucking our money away is bad, but sugar is killing us in more ways than one as well.
