Apathy is worse than the whales.

Let's do some theoretical scenarios for microtransactions:

-apathy with whales: "we need to ensure a good monetisation model to extract value from the whales, even if the normal players are missing out"

-apathy without whales: "let's try adding microtransactions to extract more value per player, it won't hurt our sales!"

-No apathy with whales: "no one is buying our game! And our whales have no one to play with! Are the whales even enough to fund this on its own? We got to undo the microtransactions soon!"

-No apathy no whales: "why did we even add microtransactions! Every business knows that only quality games and good marketing can help sales!"

A little hyberbolic but surely you see my point.