I would be willing to pay maybe $20-$30 for a guaranteed specific character of my choice, and I'd be willing to do it partly out of a feeling of "hey, this game is great and not at all predatory, here's some cash." This isn't just an empty claim: I've spent ~$100 on League of Legends total, which has that freemium model.

Instead, I've spent literally nothing on this game, because you need to spend a small fortune to get anything, and you can't even be sure what you're buying after spending the small fortune, and the game still bizarrely limits how much you're allowed to have fun in the endgame. I don't want to encourage/reward this kind of lootbox approach coupled to nickel-and-diming play time.

I am sure that Mihoyo knows the economics and is making more of a profit with the current model than alternatives, but they're giving up fish in favor of whales by doing so.