I wonder what would happen if the app stores posted info on the app page like "the top 1% players of this game spent an average on $5,000 on it last year". Would that do anything to help people avoid getting into this form of quasi-gambling?
The top 1% don’t spend nearly that much. The number of people spending eye-popping amounts is relatively small. You have to get deep into the long tail before it gets into the hundreds or thousands.
Posting these numbers might have the opposite effect: Players who spend a lot of money want to be at the top of leaderboards. If they saw what the 1% were spending they might convince themselves that not only is it okay to spend that much, but that they need to spend even more.
Although I do not like F2P for all the dark patterns (which have infiltrated non-F2P as well unfortunately) if it was capped to a reasonable maximum amount a year, with no player to player trading at all, and no multiple accounts for the same store account, it might could be made to not be as predatory while still keeping it financially sustainable for the companies that produce the games.