[Archipelagia]

The difference in conversions between free and $1 is not a matter of price. The hard part is getting someone to pay in the first place.

That's why a model of free game with paid addons/extras/pay-to-win/etc. works so well – once someone already tried your game and gets invested in it, they're more likely to spend anything.

[Archipelagia]

And in mobile gaming there's also the matter of looking for "whales". Basically, while majority of people will never spend anything, there's a minority willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars. Then, the difficulty comes from showing your game to enough people to find whales.

(Whether that model is ethical in the first place is a whole different matter. I don't think it is, so maybe eliminating it will be a net positive in the world.)