I think an obvious solution here is simply to strengthen consumer protection laws and shift the burden of preventing this from the consumer to the vendor.

The common thread in all these stories was "a kid spends a bunch of money, parent asks for a refund, is told no". But consider if the law says that digital goods such as this must be refunded on demand unless you can prove the purchaser wasn't a child. (If you want to really drive the point home, add a penalty clause for abuse, so you have to refund 150% of the total if there's evidence of any attempt to target minors, hide the charges, dark patterns, etc.)

If Apple becomes statutorily required to refund the money, they'll get very good very quickly at kicking bad actors off their platform.

This shouldn't be a system where parents try and protect themselves and their children and scummy vendors try and exploit them; it should be a shystem where Apple (and the other platforms and market operators) try to protect themselves and scummy vendors try and exploit them. Leave liability with the people most able to protect themselves, not the least able.

I don't think bans or treating games like drugs is needed; if you remove the financial incentive of being abusive, you'll stop the abuse.