Ok I skipped most of the toxic replies in this thread but here’s my take as a completely f2p player on principle not because of poverty who will not be buying premium.
The ark pass is fine. People have already outlined the multitude of reasons why but I want to zero in on one thing.
If someone gets a “good deal” on mats, they are incentivized to pay, and can hence, efficiently get ahead of someone who does not buy that amount assuming they play same amount. I think this is the issue many battlepass detractors have.
The problem is that as an f2p player you need to understand that if you think pay2progress=pay2win that means you think progress=win.
I can’t tell you what to do but imho if you need superiority over others from pure time alone, notice the amount of 1490 whales then reconsider. Or were they too far away? Maybe its because you now no longer have to be a “whale” to get ahead so the annoyed f2ps find it harder to rationalise why X person is ahead of them.
Either way, find enjoyment in the game outside of superiority over others. If you can’t then quit. Seriously I don’t say this lightly but if your only enjoyment is flexing on others, just quit. This is 1000% not the game for you, even more so than if you hated honing or raids or whatever.
As a final note, I want to add that just because you cannot flex on people by playing super efficiently and a lot, while people who pay can, does not make it a mobile game.
Lost ark is a pay2flex/speedup game. If you consider flexing and speeding up over others winning, just quit. You will despise this game.
Edit:
After posting this I thought of a good tl;dr summary.
Don’t think of lost ark as a race, but rather a movie. Some people want a fast track to the good parts, but for the rest, we should enjoy the watch 
