Honestly, at its very nature, the MMORTS genre is entirely unfair. Why? Because activity can play such a large role and, just like money, that is a resource - some people have it, some don't. It is the exact same concept. If anything, I would suggest that gold bridges the gap between younger people who often have fewer time-consuming commitments than the average working adult, who may have a little disposable income but not the luxury to play for six hours after school, at the weekend or in those excessively long holiday periods. Remember that most adults don't get the length of a Summer holiday across the whole year.
Of course, there will be exceptions to this, but I would argue that for the most part, gold is not abused. If someone is using a lot of gold, they get called on it and all things considered, the complaints about it are minuscule in comparison to the amount of users to play and post in each world.
On another note, InnoGames is a business and a professional one at that. If there were other ways of funding maintenance and further development of their products that did not impact free players negatively, I think it's pretty obvious that they would have been utilised. That said, gold users are what keep this game alive so that others may have the privilege - it's not a right - to play the game for free.
All of the above views are my own and I do not represent - or necessarily reflect the views of - InnoGames. Yada, yada.
