I can’t even really fault them for putting the time saver shit in for an extra cost. If you only have a limited amount of time available to play paying a few bucks to reduce the friction and make it more fun can be worth it. I’d be upset if it was included by default. I want to go follow the wind and see what adventures I find.

The problem with this opinion is that the friction exists in the game because of the cash shop. If they had decided not to have a cash shop at the design stage then they also wouldn't have implemented the friction that you get to skip by paying money.

So you can either pay money to make it more fun like you said, or Ubisoft could make a proper game and have it be fun without you having to pay for the game more than once.