If I could choose not to start WoW again, I would avoid it like a plague.
I wouldn't call it adiction per-se, but my problem with WoW is that even though I hate what Blizzard is doing, the extreme loss of quality both in game (recent example - they released a patch where one of the main feature are class campaigns, and 8/12 questlines didn't work and had major 100% repro blockers, like requiring items that do not exist) and in Customer Support, and how it's more and more obvious that they just want to milk the playerbase of their money without any kind of effort, I still keep playing. It's not love-hate relationship, I actively dislike Blizzard.
But, it's one of the only games my partner is playing and that we can play together, and I also have a lot of friends in the guild I've been playing for the past two years with. I mostly just log in for a dungeon or two with her, or a regular raid night with my guild, which I enjoy.
If I stopped playing, I'd give up a lot of friends and also an activity with my partner that we're mostly used to. She doesn't really play other games. So far, it's still worth it, but I'm really conflicted every time I have to give Blizzard more money, since I'm basically held hostage.
I highly recommend looking for a free server, i.e Turtle WoW (assuming it won't get shut down, they are getting sued IIRC), because those people are actually making an effort to make a game they love better. Blizzard is just exploiting people like me, and their nostalgia, without any regard for the game. It's a shame Morhaim lost the battle against capitalism and was driven out, and it's extremely aparent on the quality of the game and direction Blizzard is going.
Just to be clear - the game in itself is pretty all right and fun to play, what I have issue with is the way how extremely obvious is that Blizzard does not give a fuck, produces low-quality slop without any semblance of QA, and just plain exploits the playerbase. It could've been so much better with the resources they have, but they chose not to, and just cut corners more and more. And I highly despise that. Patches are broken, there's reskinned content that's heavily time-gated, and it just screams "low effort".
Do yourself a favor and don't think about giving Blizzard money.
Hmm, you are right, replacing gender with race does make a good point I didn't realize. "I want to be able to choose a white driver because I wouldn't feel safe with a driver of different race" is basically the same point as with gender, but sounds way more wrong and it shows pretty well why is the whole idea a bad one.
At least I'm struggling to find any arguments for the gender version (which is not a bad thing, mind you), if I take this race example into account. You are right that way more rigorous screening of drivers with 0-strike policy would be a lot better than this.
In general this might work for a lot of similar situations, treating gender as a race. I'll keep that in mind, because it makes sense and I never really though about it that way. Thanks!