I've played many ios games before. .-. I mainly play games on pc though. And I know what you're saying with companies having to make money. I mean think of it like, someone makes a free to play game and they've put mounds of work and money into it, they're gonna have to make profit off it somehow. Some f2p are actually FREE while others give options of in-game PURCHASES.
Yeah sometimes players just go ahead and purchase one of those OP weapons or whatever instantly, but there are players like myself, that would hang on tight and earn those items the slower way around. Either way you're gonna get that item somehow.
A current ios game I play is called, Unison League and there's this currency aside from gold, called gems. Now you can either buy these in in-app puchases or through the so-called slower way, through quests. I go with the quest because it's way cheaper than buying 1 gem. 1 gem is $1.11. Haha. It's better to quest multiple times to get gems for completing each quest.
By the way your last part confused me, ""The little dumb idiots who pirate everything and want everything for free." That's why I replied oddly.