This post is a joke right? This is probably the least money intensive game in terms of staying competitive I've ever played. Have you tried any other game? Take a game like game of war, clash of clans, etc. You can spend $10k and lose it all in minutes. That's not a joke. You can't lose anything in this game and it's relatively cheap. People have to make a living and seeing how you came here to post I bet you put a solid amount of hours into this game.
On top of that they give you so many options to get shards without paying a cent. We have plenty of powerful f2p players in our guild.
Tl;Dr get real