Not to mention pretty much anything these days can be reduced down to "flipping a bit." As a software developer I flip bits for my employer, and in exchange, they tell my bank to flip some bits in their DB.
Indeed, the sort of reductionistic argument that the GP is making is simply too simplistic to be useful. It's like saying making a chair is just rearranging atoms and therefore it should be free as well.
The difference is that making a chair involves labor and atoms. Enabling a digital hat involves neither.
If a wizard could magically duplicate chairs, I’d have the same argument. Why charge $5 for something that costs $0 to replicate.
The design of the hat and the system to run it costs something. The design of the chair and the workshop to build it costs something. Those are fixed costs. It’s the marginal cost that is very different.
I’m not even against charging people for digital hats (I paid $5 after all), I’d just rather companies be more straightforward. Id rather pay $60 for a game once and not be microtransactioned.
Id rather pay $6 (or not since I don’t like this app) once than pay to enable features that clearly cost nothing or very little to implement.
App makers can charge whatever they like. And potential customers can complain about how much it sucks trying to convince app makers to build in a way I think is better for society (ie, straightforward prices for things rather than income streams from payments). But I could be wrong.