Financially. I personally know one person who pissed away their rent money on a F2P and got evicted. I also know of several other stories of people (not who I know personally) where they spend a lot of money they don't have, to the point of ruin. (Not being able to financially recover is a very high bar - you can financially recover from a bankruptcy for instance.)

I mean, sometimes they are kids (or the developmentally challenged)[1] but adults [2] too. There are more sad stories. One I recall was a developer who invited their superwhales to a launch of the new beta expansion in person. (All expenses paid) They sent one a plane ticket, but the the player never showed because they couldn't afford to get to the airport. I wish I could find that story online.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48925623

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/03/01/why-its-s...

> losing your time, while sad, is not within the scope of this discussion

I very clearly and explicitly said "money they didn't have" in my first post and was talking about financial costs.