Used to play Apex Legends a lot, so could give some reasons why.

A core part of Apex’s monetization is “keep the core gameplay F2P accessible and make super expensive skins for those who can pay”. The game would put items worth around 300$ multiple times in a single season. After that as long as the gameplay’s solid; F2P players wouldn’t find a reason to not play; and whales could flex their 300$ death box to all these players interacting with them. Hell, give F2P players tasks that take too long to unlock new skins; and maybe they’ll toss a few bucks in too. You’ve got yourself a neat money loop, and players are happy.

As for cheating; most people i see cheating does it as a way of doing the unexpected in a video game. Cheating is not enjoyable to most if you do it all the time; but the cheat providers offer cheats with shorter time spans to hook the people that want to do just that. I recall an interview done with a cheat developer for a different yet similarly popular game, and they’ve said most of their sales come through these.