Well, I misspoke. When I said "nowhere near 1,000,000 people on GOG", I specifically meant the forum or people who'd bother with the wishlist.
But yeah, you're right. I know I personally didn't ever even do so much as click on the "community" tab for some years. The only reason I came here in the first place was just to do some trading. I can only imagine the number of people who, like me, only come/came here for the games.
It's the whole "silent majority" thing in action, really.

I still think of "microtransaction" to be about monetary amounts less than the typical smallest physically tradeable amount, e.g. less than $0.01 USD. I remember such discussions being about how articles on newspapers websites and blogging websites could cost a seeminly negligible amount per pageview that would add up to an amount similar to a subscription, e.g. several dollars per month. In that way, people would pay for what they experienced, more for more and less for less, on an individual basis.

Anything more than a $0.01 doesn't seem "micro" to me at all. I just now looked at Wikipedia and apparently the terms "microtransaction" and "micropayment" both have very fluid meanings depending on context. The phrase "in-app purchases" makes more sense to me because it carries its context with it much better. It's a bit Apple-esque, though.

Anyway, I really don't care about some games having whatever it's called. I don't care about that in the same sense that I don't care whether a band or singer does something new that I don't like. If I want to listen to music from a band the way they used to make it, then I'll put on one of their albums from back when they used to sing it the way I like. Recordings are great that way, pretty much just like books. And if I don't have it or can't find it? Well, I still have nostalgia and faded memories for reminiscing until I find something else to do with my life.

I think what scares me most about that idea is that game developers might tailor core game mechanics and gameplay difficulty around payable game content which would suck for me.

I can live with things like "pay for the extra level", "pay to play multiplayer with your friends" or "pay to remove ads" or "pay for the cool looking uniform" in freemium products (which remind me of sharewares of old which were not a bad idea), but the idea that you'd have to pay, say, 1$ to get "the gun that will give you a fighting chance against the boss if you're not a flawless player", that kind of disrupts the experience for me.

I think freemium games could potentially be a good thing for gamers (its the ultimate "try it before you buy"), but they'll have to navigate this one very carefully. Hopefully, most will figure it out.