The basic expectations, which are for the player to ask:
"what are these currencies I'm accumulating, how do I spend them",
and
"how do I interact with the player economy to maximize my earnings"
are not really all that high. How successfully they find the answers to those questions depends somewhat on their resourcefulness, but I've seen people explain merits>converters>ios/inf to strangers in-game, on discord, here, on reddit, and elsewhere, so the information does get out there.
Sure, if a hypothetical player discovered the game by themselves and has made their first character and has no friends, it might take them until their second character to be able to self fund for SOs, but high likelihood someone will gift their first toon multiple millions.
Thank you, Captain Canada! >.>