If you need to keep explaining how the new income system works, it's not intuitive, even if it is simple.
My experience was, load up the game, see my saves are incompatible, delete them and start again. Annoying, especially since I was a long way in; but that happens with games in development.
Start a new game, see the new UI element on the left. Ignored the school and went straight to the lab to set it up, accidentally went to the lab office first, did paperwork, got a "square" on the new UI element. I thought "huh, there's a paperwork/income type skill now? cool. I'll just grind out a few points now and that'll make earning money easier". Six or so days later I had 2 points in "paperwork/income" or whatever it was called. I was confused when the skill went down a couple of days later. I was also confused when I couldn't find my current money, even after buying and making a couple of blue potions.
It then occurred to me that the "paperwork/income" skill thing was actually a representation of my money, but I still couldn't find the actual amount of money I had. Simplification is fine and all, but there's taking it too far when displaying something like money. A bit more playing and I began to think that it wasn't actually showing my money, but perhaps it was more like, quickly expiring "work points". I thought "no, that couldn't be it. How am I supposed save up for more expensive things? That's a horrible mechanic, they wouldn't do that, lets check the forums!". Forums confirmed that it is indeed quickly expiring work points, that you lose if you don't spend.
I read the explanations of what and why. I don't care how good or reasonable the reasons behind the change are--I'm playing the game after all, not developing it; that's just how it works from a players perspective--, I found it horribly unintuitive and can easily understand why people don't like it. It doesn't work like any mechanic I remember from any other game I've played. New mechanics aren't necessarily a bad thing, but why reinvent the wheel for such a simple thing? (need item, earn income, buy item). I ended up getting frustrated with the income mechanic because, from my perspective, it just doesn't work in any relatable way, and I just put the game down.
I went away and couldn't help put think about it, because a game I like is no longer fun because of an annoying mechanic. Even after I realised the secret of it all. You don't need to work any more. You just don't. You can't save up for future purchases, so working is a complete waste of time now, right up until you need to buy something. Then you need to press the right buttons to light up enough work points so you can immediately run off and buy the thing you need. And then you lose any extra points you earned. Like unspent game/company specific funbucks you use to purchase DLC stuff in AAA games, or unused time/data on pre-paid phone plans. You earn the thing, then it's taken away from you when you don't use it quickly enough.
It's still an annoying mechanic, it might be less grindy, but IMO it's more tedious. If you want to keep it like this instead of reverting to a more intuitive "earn money, save money, need item, buy item" mechanic that the game previously used, just double down and simplify things even more. Make the income system work like energy systems I've seen in a lot of other games. If you don't actually need to work any more, just make it so the player doesn't actually have to work any more, and just unlock income waypoints that add to your "income energy" (for want of a better term, that one is horrible).
Energy systems in other games limit the actions you can take per day (or week or whatever) and refresh when you rest. You unlock more Energy Points as you go through the game, through training or waypoints or whatever. Income Points wouldn't limit your actions, just your purchases. Go to school and work for the first time, BAM! first Income Point unlocked. Now the game assumes you actually go to work, just like you can assume you eat/drink/bathe etc. If you spend your single income point, it refreshes when you sleep. The game even already leads you to the second point. Talk to the girl -> offer to train her at the gym -> go to gym -> see this Frankie guy -> offer to train him for money -> BAM! second income point unlocked. Now when you sleep, your income points refresh back to two. Or maybe that was your third, you might have done paperwork in your lab office already and unlocked another Income Point; though I'd maybe save that one for when you get the girl working there instead. It's much the same as it is now, but you don't need to keep pressing buttons to earn the points when you need them, just to have them taken away from you if you don't quickly spend them. The game assumes the PC actually does their job and earns the money.
You still wouldn't be able to just buy all the things early on, you need to unlock the Income Points first--some of which need storyline progression--then you spend actual time buying the item. I imagine it also wouldn't be hard to gate some locations behind needing a certain number of Income Points unlocked. This lets the player spend less time clicking work buttons and more time on the story, and also lets the developer have some kind of idea where the player is at, by knowing what they'll need to do to unlock each of the Income Points, and how many Income Points each item costs.
So there you go, my thoughts on the new Income mechanic; roll it back or double down on simplifying things even more.
(congrats, after I lurked for ages, you got my first post on these forums).
