I found a lot of things in this review pretty spot on, and am curious if others feel the same. I do still regularly play one MMO which I love (GW2), but dumped all the others I used to play since I got fed up with their obvious shift to practices he discusses here. While Anet may be guilty of employing some, they are not imho deliberately destroying the play experience just to sell you a workaround since in game achievement tracks are still the primary focus.
Well… MTG is as close as a live service game can be as a physical object, including questionable monetization practices. The booster pack is very similar in principle to the lootbox. They also can ensure continuous sales through power creep and controlling what cards are allowed in official competitive formats. It's not the absolute control that digital live services allow, but it's nearly there. As a more practical comparison, MTG is more manipulative than card games that allow players to pick full sets that they want.
Then we have MTG Arena that is a Live Service in every aspect. They don't let you freely host those games either.
I agree on all of the above. But they still don't provide anything resembling a service. They just call these things live services to disguise bad products.