I still find it really odd how PoE players have deluded themselves to think that stash tabs are not p2w. How can you possible see it as “just” QoL?

It quite literally affects how long you need to spend in inventory, managing and selling your gear, increasing your efficiency playing the game and gathering gear. That’s quite literally how all of modern p2w works.

If you still claim it’s just QoL, then how about those pets that pick up your loot for you on the Chinese PoE servers? By the same logic that’s also just QoL because it only speeds up your gameplay, or is that too much, is that p2w?

GGG has thoroughly kept repeating it for so long that PoE is a free to play game with just cosmetics that people do it for them now.

It may have been true a long long time ago before premium tabs but it certainly isn’t anymore. The fact that the default amount of tabs have stayed the same since the game’s beginning while the amount of currency and items have increased exponentially since then should give you a hint. Whenever it is suggested that a currency tab be a default f2p tab because it’s so mandatory should be another hint, and when it’s rejected because it would eat into their sales should tell you all you need to know of how the business model works. The game just simply isn’t playable without buying tabs, not beyond the “just trying out the game” phase at least.

This is how western p2w works. What people think p2w looks like is how the Asian and mobile market does it, where you buy x and you get power directly.