I think that is just a bit too simplistic of a model. Yes, caveat emptor, etc etc etc.
But Plarium go out of their way to try to be deceptive. Does it make sense, business-wise? Surely it does. Plarium absolutely have entire teams dedicated to figuring out whether the business model makes sense. Is it dirty af, and should we be criticising them for it? Yes, we should.
I can't agree with that entirely. I don't know plaruin's corporate structure but publicly traded corporations have a legal, ethical, and fiduciary responsibilities to put the interest of their shareholders first. Some would say that privately held corporations have the same responsibilities to themselves. So when you ask the question 'does it make business sense', if the answer is yes then you are essentially asking am I legally and ethically required to do this? If they have hundreds of research papers and market research on human behavior discussing spending patterns and they choose to make less money than they could they could be sued they could be fined they could even possibly go to jail. What they're doing is not fraud, cheating, etc. it's not just the right to maximize their profits it's their legal and ethical responsibility to shareholders and to themselves.