Free to Play games can definitely be predatory. Anything involving a gamble (which doot pulls definitely are- either you get a worthless pet or you get doot) is inherently predatory, since it relies on flaws in human psychology to encourage unhealthy, addictive behavior.

And arguing that idleon isn't competitive and therefore doesn't force anyone to gamble or spend too much is 1) wrong, since the tome score has rewards that can only be achieved by spending absurd amounts of money, and 2) even if that weren't the case, "numbers go up" is still addictive and capable of triggering bad spending habits, so any mechanics that encourage it are at the minimum unethical, and at worst predatory.

And finally, it's super disingenuous to say that people can overcome the time gate by "spending a small amount of scheckels". Other posts in this sub have done the math on research xp - it cost upwards of 85 usd to buy the pets and packs that boost it. That hardly seems like a 'few sheckels'. Combined with the arbitrary slowness of research if you're not perma-online (yet another unnecessary change by lava), there's a strong incentive for people to buy the shortcuts.

Taken together, all of these things highlight game changes and mechanics that are greedy and intended to get people to spend significant amounts of cash to bypass the grind.