Three quarters of their imagination is being handed to them.

Yeah i don't know where you are getting this from but your own bias is heavily clouding your judgement. I have been a VTT player for 4 years and was a physical player for 3 years during college before that. We use a VTT because our group collectively lives in 5 separate states now. We are all vehemently against supporting WOTC in any way and were all well aware of the bullshit WOTC pulled and started playing other systems since. In fact I would go as far to say that it takes way more effort up front to learn a VTT because you have to learn how to use it on top of the games rule system. VTT aren't just for lazy gamers and I really don't understand this mentality. I mainly see it from people who haven't tried VTT or are TTRPG vets shaking their fist about how kids these days don't play right.

All of our group would much much rather play in person for so many reasons and we often reminisce about how much we miss it, that being said I am so thankful I was able to maintain my table after we all moved to separate states. I don't think I would have been able to find a new group in the place I live and even if I did I live in BFE. VTT's are about much more than having your imagination handed to you and burying your head in the sand.

Wotc/hasbro obviously don't care about old heads and even relatively old newcomers like me (I started at the tail end of D&D 3.5). They want that sweet stranger things/critical role money.

But a lot of people who have been using VTTs for a long time clearly see the tradeoffs that come with switching to the "official" VTT. I'm seeing more and more people in these circles go back to AD&D, Pathfinder, DCC etc to get away from wotc as much as possible