Vote
I voted for "Don't know."
Honestly I have not witnessed personally HCS be criticized by others in public, so I have not seen how they would handle the situation. As you said Egami, HCS receives a large amount of whining warranting sympathy even from me.
Perspective
I do want to say that HCS did not handle criticism from me once, which got me banned from Global Chat. Close to the truth (but definitely not the truth) a staff from HCS stood firmly in their position to ban me although they had little evidence that supported their decision. I was later suspended for posting a screenshot of the criticism in my bio.
Perhaps I voted "Don't know." because I pity HCS.
Costs
As my friend yghor mentioned, 5 or 60 dollars is different for every person. I understand it would be time-consuming calculating the capital for each country and adjusting inflation and deflation to accommodate fsp sales to each country. Even in America do we see large differences in capital for the different regions. As an example, in Texas the hourly wage is $7.25 and in California it will soon be $10. A typical home in Texas costs around 150k while in California it is 440k.
I am not an economists, but I think this is something that can be looked at.
Myself, have not spend currency, but I do not discourage others just because I do not. I do not beg either, and as Egami mentioned, watching the adds or participating in surveys is a way to contribute to HCS.
People Interaction
As I understand most of HCS (if not all) are based in the U.K. I do not mean to question their etiquette or ethics, but since this is an international game, perhaps they should have expertise in the area of cultural/gender/race dilemmas. For example, in Global Chat,
"You may not
Use non-English language. The vast majority of the games community is English speaking, as are the HCS Staff."
It is not that most of the community is English-speaking, it is that many of the community is bilingual or multi-lingual with English as their second or third language. I have spoken to many players that are generous, respectful and rule-abiding, that hardly speak English. Some of them have gotten by, but how will others progress in a game where the staff only speaks English?
I can go on and on, but I will stop here and wait for other replies.
Thank you for your time Egami and the rest of the community,
TX.

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