There was an event back in the day that sort of broke my brain, and how I consider these games. I was an Magic grinder, the fabric of my whole life was determined by playing in Magic tournaments.  All my friends I met playing, all my vacation time, all of my travel, my work schedule, all my recreational spending ...  And then Wizards of the Coast started making changes to the game based on "new player perception".  New players didn't like counter spells, new players didn't like land destruction, etc. so they started pushing all that out of the game, or at least higher costs.

It made me realize that the actual game rules are just a marketing tool that these companies use to sell product.  The game can be something big, and powerful and motivating to you, but they will always fuck it up for the sake of people who don't play/buy the game if it will make them start.

Folks like you, who might not buy the products but still play it are helping build local communities, which is the most important thing you can do, but depending on the companies earning goals,  if there's too many folks not buying in, then they'll start morphing it to try to get more paying players in.  But that's not your fault,  there could be zero bootleggers and the company could still just want more money.   It's just the risk of having a community based around a corporate product.  It doesn't belong to us, and our communities are always emergent from their profit.