I wouldn't say they're at the hellscape stage yet. They need money, but they still haven't locked in enough customers to start outright abusing them. So they use middle of the road approaches like their quests, stores and cosmetics to get some extra cash while also having these things be completely optional and beside the actual messaging experience. Only after they get big enough will the hellscape stage start - perhaps, banner ads, automatically joining sponsored servers for users, clawing back essential features to put them behind Nitro, stuff like that.

And he'd ask why the hell you're paying for a taxi for your burger.

I think a rural farmer from 1925 can understand "I pay an immigrant to deliver me hot food via an exploitative middleman", if he's Indian maybe his cousin that went to the city is a dabbawalla.

Like you can do your hypothetical right now with a plane ticket and a 4x4 trip to the Colombian Andes. The peasant might call you a softie, but he's not gonna become Steve Pinker and tell you everything is A-OK.

unfortunately he can only pay you back in 1925 dollars so youll have to take the dime as down payment and get the farmer enrolled in a BNPL

Yeah, he'd spit it out because it tastes like corn-fed, feed-lot crap.