There's a limited amount of building that players can do, but some things like space stations and large ships can take dozens-hundreds of players to create and maintain, and battles over them can span days-weeks.
It comes with downsides. Even mid-range ships are expensive enough that their loss will sting low-key players, and nowhere is truly safe. It's also possible to trade game currency to offset the monthly subscription costs, so well-off players can offset their losses with cash.
Lobbying in the US is not the same as bribery. It's a system that has become corrupted, but corruption is not the system's main purpose.
Ostensibly, lobbyists exist to inform legislative staff about issues which they have no experience with, like an expert witness. You can't expect all ~550 legislators to have an in-depth understanding of every topic that they vote on.
The problem is that our legislative staffs started letting lobbyists come to them, instead of seeking out reliable impartial groups to work with. So when they need information about an upcoming vote, they end up soliciting advice from the wealthiest groups in those industries which the vote would impact.
It's an insidious form of regulatory capture. It might even be worse than bribery, because ordinary citizens cannot participate.
You might consider trying something like Ubuntu or Linux Mint.
Steam's Proton compatibility layer has come a long way in the past couple of years. It supports most titles without any special configuration, including resource-hungry 3D games like Elden Ring and modded Fallout 4.
Our actual YoY inflation is significantly higher than 5%, so this does not sound like an excuse to pass off a temporary increase to my ears.