I actually agree with that. Although, I think it's just as much of an underhanded tactic when the game is not F2P.
The only thing that F2P adds to the con is the misnomer.
Well, it's sort of a complicated concept. If you turn it into a principle ala joxer - you're not doing it justice.
A lot of F2P games are reasonably "fair" - in that you can enjoy most of the content without paying or grinding that much.
Such games tend to prosper by appealing to "enough" people who have the money to spend - and who don't mind paying for superfluous things.
To me, the only thing that matters is that I feel like I'm having fun and that I'm not spending time on "not having fun".
Warframe is particularly insidious - because it took me 100+ hours to fully understand my problem with it.
Once it dawned on me, though - my distaste for it grew very fast.
It's a very interesting thing, though - because it has a TON of dedicated fans and they all perpetuate this myth of a "fair" pricing model, which is just ludicruous.
For instance, I spent literally 60-70 hours grinding before I gained access to the Frame I wanted to play. When I say grind, I mean grind. There was NO way to gain access to that Frame except to redo the exact same kind of mission over and over - hundreds of times. It's 100% RNG.
The irony is that this Frame (called Ivara) is a stealth Frame. Meaning, she's very good at Stealth missions.
Guess what you have to grind to get her?
At the point I finally grinded all her parts - and I'd spent the requisite amount of days crafting her - I was so sick of Spy missions that I never actually bothered to use her, for that purpose.
Now, with that said - you can actually play the market in Warframe and you can grind certain Mods or Parts and sell them. Of course, this in itself will require many hours of practice and grinding - but it's doable.
But, to me, that's anything but fun and the last reason I play games. I'm not trying to became a stock broker - I'm trying to play a game.
Even if you DO earn money by playing the market - you still have to wait literally days to craft anything of value. All this crafting can be "sped up" by paying more money.
It's just absurdly greedy.
If you look at negative Steam reviews - it's full of disgruntled players who "finally" got sick of the grind. We're talking 500-1000 hours before they realised their addiction and the hollow nature of the content.
But I guess it works
