Well you know capitalism seems to ruin everything eventually.

There are definitely some independent developers on there just trying to make games and/or get some dev experience (and from what I've even told Roblox is a great way to get started) but yeah there's no shortage of labor exploitation in the larger development studios (Conveniently a lot of the same ones Roblox Corp likes to partner with for on-site events)

And as for child gambling: yeah

Pretty much every significant change they've made in the last five years or so has backfired in a spectacular way

I played it with my kids. We kinda did a Lan thing, using Discord to communicate. It was fun for that especially when we play a hide and seek game. I also used it to make a game, even paid for premium because was told it's how you can get paid. But I never saw money and I let it go. Now my kids are grown all except my 16 year old and he isn't interested in playing with dad. But he does still play Roblox with his friends.

To be fair, there are some good games experiences to be found there, though by 14 they really should move on to different games. But since Roblox is a "forever game" with a bit of everything, it's easy to see why they don't: they can find different games there and it's much easier to bring your digital friends over

I've got a weirdly high saturation of college students in my intro courses who are so addicted to that shit, they play during class.