Been a while since I played, but I didn’t even reach 1k hours and was trading stuff much earlier than that. In 850h I think I bought plat once, and made it to 21 (iirc) mastery total, with a dozen or two frames and weapons in store. The only thing I spent plat on is either intermediate currency for trading, or more slots (which you still get plenty of for free from events and such).

The game involves a lot of grinding to begin with, but you can easily farm a bit to find something to sell for plat.

Also Reddit misled you a bit. The game throws 50 and 75% off plat fairly regularly at you.

Especially about the competitive thing though: I’ve never had that thought. I’ve never seen it as competitive to begin with, even in a friendly way. And afaict, there’s nothing you could do with money that would give you too much of an advantage. Maybe skip a bit of the grind, but a lot comes from mastery levels, build synergies, and knowing how to play your frame right… And even then outside of Steel Path and other endgame-ish content you can easily nuke an entire level with minimal effort.

All that said: yeah, it’s a free to play game and it has a few features that will make you want to spend money. You can absolutely not spend a single cent and achieve whatever you want though, which is why people praise it. It just means playing the game more, so the question really becomes whether you enjoy the gameplay loop to begin with and how much time you’re willing to spend.