[maze-le]

No, not necessarily. It depends on each individual and the circumstances they are in. Its like with drugs, if you have a healthy social circle, a relationship / family you care about and a stable and productive work-environment, it will be a lot harder to get you addicted to the rewards of micro-transactions.

>> I feel like the ability to reliably turn money into entertainment (...) is a great thing to have

Yes, definitely. Each and every person can use (or learn to use) these games responsibly -- Not only games -- books, videos you name it -- like most people here I have a steam account, amazon prime, audible and a few other amenities where I wouldn't use my money in a compulsory manner. But a lot of free-to-play games have these little tweaks, that make it so very easy to spend money and don't even think twice about it. The occasional invite to start a transaction, placed at strategic "blockers" where you'll otherwise have to wait for 24h to advance can already be enough.

The crucial thing is to know about these mechanisms and have some sense of introspection into ones own behavior -- these skills can be learned.

EDIT: After I read some of the other responses and thought about it -- it is also important for us all, to acknowledge that some of these mechanisms do work like drugs -- neurochmically. And like with drugs prohibitions are counterproductive -- but a good effort in regulation might be a good step forward -- I've read very good examples in the other parts of this thread regarding a step like this.