Thought: why did Blizzard choose the play to win tactic with Diablo Immortal, when they could much easier have went with a different, potentially less controversial, tactic.

Instead of locking up certain items to paying customers, unlock everything, but let people be able to pay for a temporary increase in their magic find stat.

Haven't played past Diablo 2, but even back then magic find was a critical stat players were trying to optimize with their gear. I'm sure those players would have been more than willing to shill a few $ for even a modest 25% increase (compared to the usual 300-400% people usually managed to get from their top tier gear).

So have players pay for different tiers of increase in magic find: 25%, 50%, 100%, etc., and let players do the usual normal grind for items. No loot boxes or things like that. Just the normal, D2 drop rate, items. (and trust me, Diablo 2 DID NOT have easy to get drop rates for a lot of top tier items, so you don't even have to nerf things, cause people were already more than willing to pay their way into best items).

Honestly, it's almost like Blizzard completely lost contact with their audience.