predatory monetization can cause serious financial harm to people

I'm strong believer in personal responsibility. Lootboxes are purchased both by responsible and irresponsible people. I don't want to deprave one person of fun because other one can't manage their funds. That aside, I very rarely buy them

I don’t see the root of that problem as political correctness, the root of the problem is greed

I disagree here. Every money making endeavor has greed factor in it. Everyone wants to make money, there's nothing wrong with it. The issue is that this twisted version of political correctness is extremely selective, and doesn't even sell well! It isn't even greed! Look at Witcher 3. You have wonderful, deep quest about Bloody Baron that talks about domestic violence and abuse. You have quest about hunter who got cast away because he was gay. You have a hilarious quest with cross-dressing tailor that somehow ended up on Dandelions list of whores.

Now look at Dragon Age Veliguard: There's that trans character quest. It's laid out so horribly bluntly it feels obnoxious, meanwhile gameplay itself was just very mid, as were player numbers on steam Or Concord: Game had literally character in the colours of the trans flag. It flopped so hard that developer refunded all purchases Or Black Samurai as main character in Assasins Creed: Shadows... Why would you want a black main character in game about japan? Why??? Sales were so bad, that Ubisoft refused to answer how many licenses they sold when asked about it during investors call. Or Netflix Witcher show, where they inserted people of color not bothering to even crosscheck it with lore (They invented elven dark skinned boy who came with Ciri to Brokilon... which according to lore, implied child rape, because Dryades always used captured males for procreation, and consent wasn't a factor). At the same time they cut out the some important dialogue where elves were racist against humans... Or most hilariously, recent pick of black actor as Snape in Harry potter show. There are at least few lines in the book that they managed to make sound racist with this single manoeuvre.

If this was a greed issue, these companies would just go with whatever sells, but they don't.

Sure, I get that, but what I’m trying to get at, is that you might not be aware of the issues that affect people who aren’t as well off as you are if you don’t talk to them about it, right? Like, I can speak from experience that there are lots of government programs in my own country which exist to provide support to people, but in practice, actually accessing those programs is very, very difficult.

Your story about struggle with disability seems awfully familiar to what we have in poland. I've heard horror stories of people going through similar issues as you

they just arbitrarily decided that I must have gotten better

Also familiar. Don't know anyone with severe disability personally, but I know this sort of thing happens way more often than it should.

But the family subsidies are much easier to get. I remember few years ago my friend who's works in housing market sales told me, that once government introduced subsidies for mortgages, number of signed sale agreements went up dramatically.