Serious Question.

[Rones]

How would you feel if put in the situation where someone price gauged(sp) something you wanted or worse yet needed?

You are only seeing one side, and that of the buyers. What if the price dropped? I don't expect you would be complaining, yet that would leave you a hypocrite. Why? Because the greedy buyers not willing to pay as much to the crafter/farmer, yet that is good according to your idea. For every price change someone benefits and someone loses be it the buyer or the seller, that is an unavoidable aspect of economics.

Stop and consider what it means to even buy an item in this game. Let's say you buy a piece of gear, after that do you want its price to go up or down? Considering you will most likely sell it again someday (or have the option of cashing in on it), you would want it to go up. So in this situation even the buyer benefits from rising prices.

People wonder how Erase got so high, or how other scrolls got out of hand, like Sleepga 2 560k?

It is called supply and demand. Those are high demand spells in low supply that are hard to attain, do you seriously expect them to be sold for 10-20k by people who put a great deal of effort to get those (not just talking the bcnm's, but also time spent collecting seals). Again, you only see the buyer's view.

A market view that only favors the buyer and sees not the seller is called communism. This is a capitalistic based economy, don't expect it to follow the rules of communism economics.

the thing is we already have a middleman, its called the AH. It does all our supply and demand needs for us so we can go about our business hunting and gathering.

Read my example in my above post. Sellers in nothing but an unresistricted capitalistic system will undercut each other to the point of no longer earning a profit (as seen by our own crafting system that is quite difficult to just break even in). This is a bad thing for the economy, but is solved in real life by having companies that organize the businesses and standarize prices by controlling supply. In game we don't have that, except in this example of Lavi's that is being called morally wrong. It is really nothing more than a protection of the sellers from each other.

Wouldnt it be a better server to be if more people cared about their fellow gamers? I would like to be in a server where people didnt put so much emphasis on how much gil was made off of one item and how people can gauge the market to further their own playtime.

Did you steal that from one of Lenon's speaches? :wink: Seriously though, trying to down play supply and demand so much is not going to an improve a capitalistic based economy. Everyone should just be nice and sell their stuff for half its normal value....yeah that will have great results. 8)

 

[Synical]

One last thing though. Wouldnt it be a better server to be if more people cared about their fellow gamers? I would like to be in a server where people didnt put so much emphasis on how much gil was made off of one item and how people can gauge the market to further their own playtime. People do this enough in real life, why bring that stupid mess into a game thats supposed to be a distraction from our everyday lives and not a reflection.

no Rorschach your entire post nailed what Lavi was intending i do believe.
the problem is, the game reflects life. Why? its simple, people in game are the same people out of game. (mostly)
this thread is becoming nothing more than real world economics vs ethics. well, often, very often, the tactics employed in the world by some companies are Highly un-ethical. 99.9% of the time, these unethical actions are based in the intention of making More money.
Money is such a waste of time. /sigh. but thats not what this is about, not really.

you can break this argument down into three sides.

1. the people that understand and agree with the base rules of economy. these people like how you cant get somthing for nothing, and like to find ways to make the system work for their maximum benifit.

2. people that are ideallistic and dont Want to understand the why or how of economics(though this does not mean they Dont understand), because the society that has been created around such a system is percieved to be top down and flawed.

3. the people that dont really care one way or another, just so long as they get theirs.

now this is not to say that people fit into one of the three sides, however, it does lay out the "general" belief system of the usual two sides. if you take a look at our poll, were almost 50/50 split in here. (guess which way #3 votes)

neither side is entirely correct. the problem is theres a fundmentally different set of core beliefs for two groups of people, and 100% of those people are living in the same place.

this is also not to say that someone that works the economy to make themselves richer doesnt have morals or ethics, or that someone who does not like the methods often employed to make money will be unable or unwilling to do so. the distinction is that one group Believes in the system, while the other, Despises what it can do to people.

or in other words, one set believes in the system, And in people.
while the other believes people should not want the system.

We will never any of us be able to get above any sort of petty things as greed or malice, its just not in the evolutionary cards at the moment guys. if such a thing can happen to entire Populations, i dont think that well see it within our lifetimes.
So i do not think lazy price jackers will be going away anytime soon. and that Is what people that buy somthing out simply beacuse they can, then relist for more are, they are lazy.
Justify it any way you like, that doesnt make it Right. Just because you Can doesnt mean you Should. their actions really do not help the server, or others, just themselves.
Theres always going to be this type of person too. they get theirs and get the fuck out, laughing as they go by.

oh, I voted "Yes".

~Syn

 

[Darkdante]

You don't get money for nothing. Money should be earned and not given and in this case, this money was not earned. The person may have made a wise decision but that doesn't warrant making large amounts of gil at anothers expense.

So... In your opinion Lavi, people who are wiser than others did nothing to get smart enough to be considered wise? They did not do anything to become wise? They just magically became wise because its a god given gift right? So some people are wise and some people are just god forsaken and doomed to be stupid.

People make wise decisions because they either were fortunate enough to make the right decision the first time around, or have lived a life full of expierinces that taught them to make wise decisions. In any case I can't see how you can sit there and say making wise decisions took no effort. Do you become wise with "no effort" ? Does god dictate who is wise and who isn't? Or are the wisest people the ones who work the hardest at it?

You don't get wise doing everything the hardest way possible. That is merely a stepping stone to learning to do things the better, wiser way.

No one is making gil here at anothers expense. You are choosing to make the gil the hard way because that is all your belief system allows you to do.

If the people you claim are being taken advantage of made "wise decisions" and did not buy when prices got inflated, would said leech be able to "profit" off of them? No, of course not, he would just lose gil.

But I guess those being taken advantage of never bothered to put the effort into learning that now did they?

 

[Rorschach]

You are only seeing one side, and that of the buyers. What if the price dropped? I don't expect you would be complaining, yet that would leave you a hypocrite. Why? Because the greedy buyers not willing to pay as much to the crafter/farmer, yet that is good according to your idea. For every price change someone benefits and someone loses be it the buyer or the seller, that is an unavoidable aspect of economics.

Yeah but thats the thing, we are ALL buyers at one point. Whether its buying for crafts or buying products or spells or food, we all have to deal with price gaugers at one point and thats the problem.

Stop and consider what it means to even buy an item in this game. Let's say you buy a piece of gear, after that do you want its price to go up or down? Considering you will most likely sell it again someday (or have the option of cashing in on it), you would want it to go up. So in this situation even the buyer benefits from rising prices.

Yeah but the buyer becomes the seller at that point. Its a similar relation to the person that buys items for his craft to the turn around that lesser priced item or items and make a profit. And if someone is to sell their equipment, they want it to be higher yes, but they wanted it to raise by the time that they put it up, not be the duschbag that jacks the cost of say a Hauby to , what is it now? 3mil+ or something like that?

It is called supply and demand. Those are high demand spells in low supply that are hard to attain, do you seriously expect them to be sold for 10-20k by people who put a great deal of effort to get those (not just talking the bcnm's, but also time spent collecting seals). Again, you only see the buyer's view.

Lets take Sleepga 2 for example, since thats the spell that i used in my argument. No i dont expect it to sell for 10-20k but the last time i checked they didnt change how hard that spell was to get. They didnt make it any less hard then it was a few months ago when it was 300k to what it is now at 560k. People just got greedy.

A market view that only favors the buyer and sees not the seller is called communism. This is a capitalistic based economy, don't expect it to follow the rules of communism economics.

I'll be honest, i dont know anything about communism and their economics so i really cant make a comment about it. But one question about it. If it werent run by corrupt people ( yeah i know a dream but whatever) who would it fair within itself, meaning without capitolist competitors? No sarcasm here at all i would honestly like to know.

Everyone should just be nice and sell their stuff for half its normal value....yeah that will have great results. 8)

lol , no I'm not saying we should sell things for half of what they are worth, but a certian degree of reasonableness would be appereciated. Its not like i dont know that all these goods and services cost gil its just that i dont like seeing something go for a ton of gil more then what it was previously.

And i was wondering, why didnt you quote any of my other statements and rebuttle to them? I'm not trying to start a flame war, just wondering.

Also you kept saying that Lavi was constantly refrencing "law" and "legality" when no one else was. I think her point was more of "allowed" as in "its not against the law since there is no law against it" Its the same as saying "I can screw my best friends wife because its not against the law." Sure theres no written law saying that you can or cannot do this mainly for the fact that adulterers(sp) dont go to jail for commiting adultery. But it sure as hell makes the other friend pissed the hell off when he finds out... which makes it "wrong".

Ps: sorry for making this post huge. I wish i was better at edting quotes

 

[Raesvelg]

I'm still not sure some people get the point of the original question...

Let's say I have a few million gil lying around. (Not true at the moment, but for the sake of argument....) I take a look at some of the level 54 HQ rings, and say "Hmm... there are only about 3-4 of these put up a week/month, so if I buy all of them, I'll have a monopoly on the existing supply. And I'll jack the price by 20%, and make myself another million!"

Is there an element of risk involved? Yes, but not as much as trying to corner the market on something a lot more common.

Do it with a touch of care *cough*VANG*cough*, and you'll have that price up sooner than you'd think, and people will be paying it as a matter of course, and it WILL NOT go down anytime soon. The fundamental principle of "Charge what the market will bear" will see to that.

Or in another example involving Vang, you take the only existing item on the AH (In this case I believe it was an Ether ring) buy it, and relist it at double the price.

And, in my opinion, it's an asshole thing to do. You're exploiting the market, and moreover exploiting the lemming sensibility of the average rich FFXIer.

And for the record, I've been using Vang in my examples because his is the name I see cropping up regarding this particular issure more often than any others. Yes, he's a great player in the field, but he's still an asshole in Jeuno.

 

[Lokkin]

I voted no, if the said person was raising the price, he or she would actually be cutting the chance of inflation, depending on how many people get there gil from beastmen drops of course.

 

[Rones]

And i was wondering, why didnt you quote any of my other statements and rebuttle to them? I'm not trying to start a flame war, just wondering.

I could have, but like I said earlier that was my problem with lavi's post. If I rebuttle every point from her long post, my thread in turn becomes even longer. This makes any replies to my post difficult in size and how splintered the debate becomes. I tried to pick out what I saw as your main points from your post, if I missed them, just re-emphasis them.

They didnt make it any less hard then it was a few months ago when it was 300k to what it is now at 560k. People just got greedy.

No, people didn't become more greedy. Demand most likely rose or supply dropped due to less people going after it. The longer this game is out, the higher people get and more jobs that are lvled. Thus, more need the spell is one possibility. Nothing wrong with that rising price unless you have an ethical conflict with prices fluctuating to match supply and demand.

But one question about it. If it werent run by corrupt people ( yeah i know a dream but whatever) who would it fair within itself, meaning without capitolist competitors? No sarcasm here at all i would honestly like to know.

Communism's flaws outside corrupt leadership are numerous. First I see being who wants to do the hardest jobs if you get payed the same rate. Second is it removes natural selection from the equation. Every dumb/weak/foolish person will survive, prosper, and reproduce under a communist system at the same success rate as the smartest/strongest/wisest. You could call it de-evolution. Third, there is no motivation to do top quality work, your pay is the same irregardless of how much you produce and how good it is. List goes on if you want more.

Its not like i dont know that all these goods and services cost gil its just that i dont like seeing something go for a ton of gil more then what it was previously.

If you are going to take that stance, like I said earlier, you must also be willing to complain about falling prices (any large change up or down). Every price changes has an equal hurt/benefit ratio that gets balanced between the buyer and the seller.

But it sure as hell makes the other friend pissed the hell off when he finds out... which makes it "wrong".

I brought that up because she picked out specifically the term 'laws' and 'legality' twice and attempted to say we were using those are supports for are arguments. She then went on to argue that some laws are not moral, which no questioned anyway since no one ever mentioned laws except her.

their actions really do not help the server, or others, just themselves.

Their actions help crafters. Not only do crafters suddenly have someone to quickly sell their goods to, but it actually creates a profit margin on crafted materials that are commonly procuded at cost. This encourages further craft lvling by current and new crafters which will mean greater supply in the long term. Look at my video card example near the top of the third page. This practice is extremely common and necesarry in American commerce.

 

[Rorschach]

All of your points are very valid Rones, but i'm just wondering if your thinking is more along the lines of "This is the way economics works, and thats the way it is peroid." Because it really never gave a solid answer of "right" or "wrong" its more of a "this is how it works" feel.

And while yes that is how the world and its economy works, then question we are origionally posed with is an ethical one, a moral one. "Is it right to gauge the market for ones individual gain?" The person who does the gauging doesnt care about supply and demand, they dont care about the supplier or the buyer, they only care about one thing: money. Their role in this whole thing is surpurflous, its the intent vs the outcome to others thats being put up for questioning, and thats where alot of ppl lose perspective.

Some say, "Whatever i can do to make some gil i will do regardless of the outcome is ok so long as they dont get screwed in the process." Well that is the definition of asshattery last time i checked. Screwing someone else for personal gain is a dickhead move, and theres no way around that.

Now before i hear the arguement that "Whatever you do to make gil in this game hurts someone somewhere!!!" Check the first phrase in the sencence. "Screwing over somone" not putting it up at the last AH price when there are none left.

Everything costs gil thats why we farm and craft. We dont do these things so we can find out that the time and effort we put into it is worthless because someone wanted to gauge the market. We should have to worry about these kinds of things in a game, yet saddly we do.

Looking back at the prices of what some things were, it makes me wonder if it would have risin this fast if all the gil sellers that were booted werent banned. After they left we didnt have a regular supply of certian items, like say the archers ring (yeah i know its a pain to get but follow me on this one) and other items. Instead we get gauged by fellow gamers and the inflation causes the value of gil to drop... yay? Weve become what we hate.

 

[Reality]

i voted yes, i agree with lavi and synical

 

[Rones]

but i'm just wondering if your thinking is more along the lines of "This is the way economics works, and thats the way it is peroid." Because it really never gave a solid answer of "right" or "wrong" its more of a "this is how it works" feel.

I stick to how it works, because as long as it fits that concept, I view it as moral. The reason for that is I see everyone being on an even playing field if basic economics concepts are in effect.

There is a philosophy system that says doing whatever is best (greedy) for the individual is best for everyone over all. This has some truth in it with some macro flaws. An example is buying where goods are cheapest is doing what is best for yourself, yet is better for others because it forces producers to compete. From a producers stand point, doing what is best for them results in maximum efficieny of labor and material which is better for everyone over all as well. I'm kicking myself for not being able to remember the name of philosopher who was the center piece for this view though. Might have to go through my old business ethics notes.

Some say, "Whatever i can do to make some gil i will do regardless of the outcome is ok so long as they dont get screwed in the process." Well that is the definition of asshattery last time i checked. Screwing someone else for personal gain is a dickhead move, and theres no way around that.

That is too broad of a statement to use to condemn the practice. Many good and bad ways of earning money are approved by that statement, yet you want to say anything it approves are bad. Just selling common products to earn a profit falls under that line or opening a store.

Everything costs gil thats why we farm and craft. We dont do these things so we can find out that the time and effort we put into it is worthless because someone wanted to gauge the market.

I have earned very little of my money from farming and none from crafting, yet I have carved out a nice chunk for myself. Not everyone has to be working the fields and factories to make an honest living. Many people live just off of trading stocks and produce no goods or services, is that immoral?

Looking back at the prices of what some things were, it makes me wonder if it would have risin this fast if all the gil sellers that were booted werent banned.

AH trading is a limited cause inflation (limited by the amount of money in the community). Creation of gil into the society causes inflation. Gil sellers did this by selling many goods to npcs. When you have big money sinks like dynamsis at 1mill a pop, chocobos, air ship rides, its almost suprising we don't see deflation.

I'm still disapointed no one has addressed the points I have raised in previous posts on the practice that actually have quite goods effects and are common place in American commerce.

 

[Rorschach]

I stick to how it works, because as long as it fits that concept, I view it as moral. The reason for that is I see everyone being on an even playing field if basic economics concepts are in effect.

But thats the problem, we arent on an even playing field, for low level players they have no gil what so ever and cant make enough to be considered anywhere near the level of the other players for obvious reasons. This allows for the gauging of the market as described in the origional sinerio where an uber rich player would buy up everything and then begin to gauge prices. Also when you said "as long as it fits that concept, i veiw it as moral" what did you mean by "that concept"? lol kinda confused me a lil and i dont want to make a statement based on confusion of what you said ^^.

That is too broad of a statement to use to condemn the practice. Many good and bad ways of earning money are approved by that statement, yet you want to say anything it approves are bad. Just selling common products to earn a profit falls under that line or opening a store.

Its actually not that broad of a statement... Note how after I said that, I mentioned that it wasnt in refrence to making a decent profit, i meant along the lines of completly overpricing goods to the point where it seems irrational and unfair ot the rest of the buyers.

I have earned very little of my money from farming and none from crafting, yet I have carved out a nice chunk for myself. Not everyone has to be working the fields and factories to make an honest living. Many people live just off of trading stocks and produce no goods or services, is that immoral?

Well from what i know of in this game there are 4 ways to get gil(other then buying it):

Farming, and i also consider anything that requires time and effort "Farming" whether its killing mobs, mining/harvesting/excavating/logging/fishing and doing BCNMs and NM's. If you dont consider this "farming" in your post thats cool it really doesnt matter. What matters is if you did spend a good amount of time focused on getting the drop or drops. This is great for low levels but if you wnat to make the big bucks you will have to wait till you hit a decent level to achieve this.

Gardening: little work but a HUGE risk factor with a large supply of capitol needed in the begining to start it off. But very nice payoffs if its successful. Only those who buy gil or get it from some other outside means (friend) can do this when they start playing the game.

Crafting: Decent amout of risk for the Gil you can get back. But you still need a steady gil flow unless you get all your materials and crystals yourself. Again not for the lower level people to just blow all they have on it.

Providing services: Teleports and PLs for hire. You need to get to a certian level with whm to be able to even start this and then you need to be able to provide for yourself the whole way there. Not exactly the easiest way to get large sums of gil, but still an option.

And no, people whos livlihood(sp) is through stocks and bonds isnt immoral, but then again people do different things with the stockmarket. Theres a term called "Pump and Dump" where they do what the term implies, they pump money into a certian controlled stock and then bail as soon as it makes enough money and screw the rest of the other share holders in the process. From what i hear its very illigal and also a dickhead move in most peoples books. Also what Enron did to their employees where they werent allowed to pull out their own stocks in the company right before it fell, all the while the company heads took out all they had leaving nothing for the employees who in the end got the shaft. Guarenteed one of the Top Ten Duschbag acts by a company to its employees. And for the record... yes this was wrong.

Creation of gil into the society causes inflation. Gil sellers did this by selling many goods to npcs. When you have big money sinks like dynamsis at 1mill a pop, chocobos, air ship rides, its almost suprising we don't see deflation.

1. Gil is being created all the time due to the fact that usable items drop like hail from every oriphice(sp) of Vana' deil. Theres always a way to make gil in this game in one way shape or form.
2. Why would gil sellers sell anything to an NPC? Unless its more from the NPC then from the AH. Not an attack, honest, just a question.
3. With all the talk of supply and demand, you didnt expect inflation? Gil sellers regulated the influx of certian items and they kept the prices steady, high but steady none the less. Then they were gone and created a time of less supply to meet the demand which allows regular players to fill the gap and since there arent any of a perticular item in the AH at that time, they raise the price. Theres no reason to raise it, things didnt in one night get more expensive to warrent a price hike of any kind, but they did it anyway. Why? Greed plain and simple.

I'm still disapointed no one has addressed the points I have raised in previous posts on the practice that actually have quite goods effects and are common place in American commerce.

Like what? The thing with video cards and how there is a set of checks and balances to make sure that they dont kill themselves while in competition with eachother? Well theres no need since, like you said, there is no equivilant within this game, so i guess no one felt the need to address it since we are focusing on the game's economy and not american economy practices.

 

[CubsWoo]

2. Why would gil sellers sell anything to an NPC? Unless its more from the NPC then from the AH. Not an attack, honest, just a question.

This question makes me wonder exactly how long you've been playing the game. Anyone who was around last year can vividly remember how much gil Rusty Caps brought into the economy.

At the start, Rusty Caps themselves could be fished up and sold straight to an NPC for ~2700 gil. Square soon nerfed this to about 90. However, with Smithing in the low 30's, one could synth the rusty into a Padded Cap and vendor that for the old Rusty price. Last summer, there had to be 100+ fishers in Rabao 24/7, pulling up caps, synthing them, and making hundreds of thousands of gil. I did this for awhile (it was pretty freakin' boring) but it got me something like 3 million gil in the course of 2 weeks. And that was with Light Crystals at 9-12k/stack. As a level 37 WHM, that was one huge assload of gil, and I used it to buy the carp for my Lu Shang. People would send me random /tells, the old bot police, but I'm a PS2 player. Can't bot on that, afaik.

Then they re-nerfed Rusties so a Padded only gives ~850 to vendors. Rusty Picks and Greatswords, to this day, however, are still good gil to vendors - but they're much harder to fish up (the group that got banned in Yughott was likely botfishing for Picks.) The botters moved on, to the Qufim Kraken ramp, Port Windurst, and in some cases, even the ferry. Sole sold for ~1200 apiece and Bream 900 or so. Anyone who walked through Port Windy at the time would have seen the dozens, nay, hundreds of AFK fishers endlessly fishing up Bream.

So, they nerfed NPC sale prices. Twice. As a result, you have far fewer bots and 'inflation creators' but Fishing has become a casuality of it. Even after the Rusty nerf Fishing was a craft that was self-supporting. You could make 40, 50, 60k/hr or more depending on how brave you were and where you were able to fish. Nowadays, with all the nerfs in place, Fishing needs at least one (and sometimes two or three) more leveled tradeskills to make that kind of money. What I used to make fishing Qufim and selling to vendor (Sole) and AH (Squid) I could barely make now turning all of those into Sushi and AHing them. And don't get me started on those goddamn Cone Calamary.

Sometimes, the game needs to leave well enough alone. Sure, Port Windy is clearer now and there's less 'new gil' in the player base, but tons of legit players have given up both their old craft and the game because they got caught in the crossfire of a problem they weren't contributing to.

 

[Pseulen]

I voted no IF the person used the money they got themselves through raids, camping, trading, etc. etc. This would be wrong if they got rich through ill means like a bug and thought, "Hey, why not?" This happened in EQ once where there was a banker in a zone he shouldnt have been that multiplied the money u stored 10-fold. All hell broke loose in the economy. Worse yet, my little brother sold my Lodizal Shield while I stopped playing for a few months thinking he'd buy it back before I got back in game. Whaddya know, the market on them skyrocketed and what I once camped for free, I ended up paying something like 18k when it used to cost 10k...Boooo.

 

[Rones]

But thats the problem, we arent on an even playing field, for low level players they have no gil what so ever

We all enter this game just the same (at least I don't remember getting 100k for turning in my adventure coupon). Everyone starts equal, if some start later that is their own choice. They shouldn't instantly be at the same lvl as those who have put in their time and effort.

Also when you said "as long as it fits that concept, i veiw it as moral" what did you mean by "that concept"? lol kinda confused me a lil and i dont want to make a statement based on confusion of what you said ^^.

In your previous posts you said I was being too specific on the workings of economics.

it really never gave a solid answer of "right" or "wrong" its more of a "this is how it works" feel.

I described how it works like you said, and as long as it follows that I view it as moral.

doing BCNMs and NM's. If you dont consider this "farming"

I consider farming quite different from bcnms. Farming is running around killing some kind of mob over and over. When I first got warps, teles, and airship pass I would do import/exporting of ah items to make a profit off price differences of the ah just to name another.

3. With all the talk of supply and demand, you didnt expect inflation?

I certainly expect inflation to happen sometime, I'm just surprised SE's deflation sinks haven't hindered/reveresed it more. Plus, you can have supply and demand fluctuating prices without inflation occuring.

Then they were gone and created a time of less supply to meet the demand which allows regular players to fill the gap and since there arent any of a perticular item in the AH at that time, they raise the price. Theres no reason to raise it, things didnt in one night get more expensive to warrent a price hike of any kind, but they did it anyway. Why? Greed plain and simple.

You answered your own question. Supply drops, demand remained constant, thus price rises. Again, basic economics and not a bad kind of greed. Like I described earlier, doing what is best for the individual can commonly be best for everyone over all finanically.

Well theres no need since, like you said, there is no equivilant within this game,

There is an equivilent and that is the whole reason I brought up the example. That equivalent is the very center of this entire discussion.

Let's look at the company again first. We have many small groups producing a similiar/same product. The only way they can attract customers from the competitors and gurantee their own survival is to have a price war. This results in the product dropping greatly in price until it reaches a point where the company is no longer earning a profit, yet can't raise prices without losing its customer base. All the companies get ruined and a bad economy results. However, now we take a big company (eg: Nvidia) that organizes all of its product producers into charing a standard price so they can make a profit while still guranteeing their own companies survival and customer base.

Skip over and look at ffxi crafting. Very few crafted products make a profit (many at cost). Why is this? Not because people aren't willing to pay more, but because the crafters are so numerous and competitve that they have price fought all the way down to the point where profit is gone just like all the individual production companies. This stagnates and slows crafting development due to the lack of profits, bad results just like with the production companies. Now comes along our infamous trader who buys up all the products, takes control of incoming supply, and raises/standardizes the prices much like Nvidia in my other example. The crafters see this and can actually get away with selling their goods for more than they did before and even make a profit now because the trader is forced to buy up all the goods that go for sale below his asking price to maintain control of incoming stock. Crafters make money, buy more materials, put out more crafted goods (since trader is creating an artificial higher demand), economy is stimulated, crafting is no longer a stagnate business with low to no profits.

If you followed all that you might just see a good point to the trader that is so disdained.

 

[Darkdante]

Reading this thread and looking at this poll makes me realize why there are so many poor people in this world. I merely shake my head when I read such.

I'm sure all your morals will someday come into play when you start making real money in real life and start to realize how much you make compared to those under you. Give the money back, cut your pay if thats what suits you.

But then I know ALL of you will change your morals at that time because it will suit you best, this makes me sick.

I never throw morals as an excuse in someones face when I"m working toward a goal and I never will.

 

[Rorschach]

First to Cubs: Honestly i didnt know that used to happen since i only came into the game in October of last year, so i really didnt have a clue that that was going on. Congrats on getting 3 mill in one week^^. It makes me wish i came in on that bug to work it like so many others did :lol: .

To Rones:

They shouldn't instantly be at the same lvl as those who have put in their time and effort.

This was only in refrence to the origional stiuation where someone who was rich would buy up everything and sell it at an exorbitant(sp) rate and sell it back to everyone else. In this situation, a newer player, would have a much harder time getting the gil to make ends meet so to speak. I know that we shouldnt all be equal if one puts in more time and effort to get where they are then someone else.

In your previous posts you said I was being too specific on the workings of economics.

Actually i think taking the "this is the way things are, so deal with it" approach is more vague then specific since the only options we were given were "is the right or is this wrong".

IMO if someone, whether an individual or a group of people, is in a bad situation ( in this case poverty due to someone else's greed and abuse of the economy) for any reason, should not just "deal with it". Haveing a group of people suffer for someone elses goals isnt acceptable.

And for the last 2 paragraphs that you wrote, lol i'm not going to quote them its just too long. But yes i do aggree with what you say about how the other people have a place where they help regulate the market so that the companies dont end up killing eachother in a price war. They serve a purpose and a function for the economy.

But we arent talking about keeping the product at a reasonable rate so that the bottom doesnt fall out. That wasnt the origional question that was brought before us. The question was is it wrong for someone to raise it to a much higher value. Now the real question we have to ask before we answer this is "How much is too much?" Is the person charging 100k for an item that origionally sold for say 10k?(where it really doesnt matter too much since the person is going to fall out of the game pretty quick, as you said on the first page) But if someone is charging say 5k over the price of say an archers ring, no one is going to care all too much since the item goes for 550k+ now so the people who are buying it already know that the item is a little more then most.

The origional question that we are faced with isnt "Does this work?" it isnt "Is this a feesable strategy to make gil in this game?" it isnt "How does this person fit in the scheme of the economy in this game and its realation to how it works in our own economy in real life?". Its "Is it right or wrong for a person to have sole control of an item and then gauge the price much higher then what it was?" period, end of story, no need to add more to the situation then what is already here. You even said that it wasnt fair in your first post to this argument on the first page since it would be considered a monopoly. So why is this going on for 4 pages? Note: Dont answer that, it was a retoricle(sp) question. I dont care anymore, i dont know and i really dont want to know at this point, this is my last post on this subject.

And now to DarkDante... :

But then I know ALL of you will change your morals at that time because it will suit you best, this makes me sick.

How can i say this nicely... I know i'll refrence what you said in an earlier post^^.

Why do you think you have a right to judge what someone does with an item they farmed?

What gives you ANY right to assume and suggest that anyone who makes money automaticly becomes moraly corrupt and does a 180 degree turn from what they previoulsy felt or beileved? People who are morally corrupt will stay morally corrupt when they have money or not since the only thing a greedy person with money wants is more money no matter what the consequences to others. And while money and power do have the ability to corrupt good people its not fair to say that money will ALWAYS corrupt a person. Remember kids, opinion is NOT fact^^.

I never throw morals as an excuse in someones face when I"m working toward a goal and I never will.

Thats good since i never heard anyone in Jeuno /shout "I'm lowering/raising prices for the betterment of the server!!!"

But if what you ment to say was something along the lines of "I never throw morals as an excuse in someones face when they are working toward a goal, and i never will." thats a whole different story.

Depending if this is what you ment with the last quote DD, i will edit my comment, and take out the last statement. If not and I was right, then i'll edit my comment again to put in my 2 cents.

 

[Darkdante]

What gives you ANY right to assume and suggest that anyone who makes money automaticly becomes moraly corrupt and does a 180 degree turn from what they previoulsy felt or beileved?

I'm not judging anyone Rorschach. I'm trying to figure out WHY you people are.

You people are judging other people based on your assumption that they are not earning the money that they make, am I right?

Another way of looking at this is....

What your trying to say is that because they make alot more money than you doing things that profit off of all your hardwork, they dont deserve it right? And you are calling this Immoral.

ONe thing I can figure out for your reasoning is that they are making more money than you the easier way and you are jealos. If they were not making more money or comparable money than you you'd have no problem and wouldn't say anything.

Another reasoning I can think of you'd have is that your trying to blame inflation on these people. What your trying to do is pass the blame onto others because there are alot of people that are too dumb to know how to be smart shoppers. Simply put, if the price increases DONT BUY IT, if you do you have no one to blame but yourselves. Send your flames to the idiot who bought it at that price. If McDonalds was an auction and somebody payed 100 dollars for a burger thereby setting the price insanely high is it McDonalds fault somebody was that stupid?

Let me be the first to tell you folks that there is nothing Immoral about making money the easy way. When you folks get smarter you will realize this is the way to make real money, its NEVER the hard way. But as you learn sometimes the hard way is the only way you will know how, this is a reason to get wiser.

This is true someone will always have to make the money the hard way, economies cannot be built without the builders. However as you advance in your quest to get money you will find much easier ways to make money. When you do find them, will you still be stupid and do things the hard way when more profitable ways are availble to you?

If you do, I commend you for being nice enough to continue being a worker bee. However as you get wiser I would think you'd be smart enough to realize that very few in this world is totally innocent of what you are saying is immoral. If however they are, then it is most likely they are poor and they are very very religious, and I can respect that.

If this is all of you people, keep preeching I can totally understand that. And I respect and withdraw my arguments. But I kinda doubt people who pay monthly fees on a computer are these kinds of people.

lol, another thing I had to add was do you people shop at Walmart? lol.

Then you are all Immoral, imagine what all those third world country people are saying. They made all that cheap shit that your buying. :roll:

So are you now Immoral as well?

Get off your high horse.

 

[Kirayamato]

I voted no firstly because that reality and synical both rngs voted yes and i don't like the dmg they usually do... hence i wanna be opposite

Just kidding... <3 Syn and Reality.

I think is not cause imo is it a market strategy to gain profit. Making use such advantage is what we normally do... Transfering the items from Guild to AH is also known as a service and where that person charge???

Well that's me... i usually camp in GUild

 

[Rones]

Is it right or wrong for a person to have sole control of an item
...You even said that it wasnt fair in your first post to this argument on the first page since it would be considered a monopoly.

Going on the assumption that they have 'sole control' of the item, I would agree with that train of thought. It would be a monopoly in the purest since and he could get away with charging whatever he wants. Immoral by my standards, but even that situation could be debatebly.

However (there always is one :wink, the buyer does not have sole control. One of my big points throughout this thread has been that the crafters of the community control the influx of supply, a buyer can attempt to limit and direct it, but he has no control over how much and when supply enters the economy.

Next, is more of a practical implication. There are four ah's in our community and supply for that item can pop up on any of them. It is impossible for one person to watch all four, every minute of every day. (This relates back to his lack of control on incoming supply) Thus products can and will slip through his net proverbial net, undermining his practice. Also, the longer he does it, the closer people will watch the ah for that item they really want. This is what I experienced with refresh, I would be gone to class for a couple hours and bam miss three sales. Even if it wasn't such a common item, there will be a time between where it goes up for sale and when the trader gets it. The trader is then a victim of his own success, the more he does it the more people will be looking for that cheap one to pop on the market.

Not to nit pick, but your example actually brings out an important point. A trader would actually be forced to raise the price considerably or choose cheap priced items as a base. Otherwise he will lose more in ah fees than he makes from it as in your example of raising 550k archer rings to 555k.

As you see, he does not have sole control. Thus I do not classify it as a monopoly which would be the point I would agree it is immoral.

How is this much different than a business buy out on the stock market? Someone buys up all the available stock, demand reaches maximum, supply drops, price goes up. I don't see anything immoral about that in rl, and since I see ffxi's economy as functioning much the same, I do not see it as immoral here either. Perhaps my analogy is flawed.

I did finally find that philosopher I mentioned earlier I liked. Adam Smith and his 'invisible hand' (which I described earlier), where doing what was best economicaly for the individual free of outside intereferece (govt) resulted in the optimum outcome for the citizenry.

 

[Rorschach]

As soon as I think I'm out, they suck me back in...

/sigh lol I thought I wasnt going to be making another post but, hey whatever this will be a short one (or atleast i'll try :lol: )

I'm not judging anyone Rorschach.

Really? I could have sworn you were judging everyone who view this practice as hipocrits(sp) when you said...

I'm sure all your morals will someday come into play when you start making real money in real life and start to realize how much you make compared to those under you.

But then I know ALL of you will change your morals at that time because it will suit you best, this makes me sick.

Yes, Dark you were judging us. And yes you were calling us hipocrits(sp)
when you said that. And for the record, I was judging those who "could" make their gil this way, and to a greater extent those who do this in real life since it would be considerd a monopoly.

And I'm going to say this one last time, its not a question of "Can this work?" Its a question of "If this were to happen, is it wrong?" And everyone, including the Capitolist American Government says that monopolies are wrong. Period. I'm not going to debate the "rightness or wrongness" of a monopoly since that question has been answered already.

What your trying to say is that because they make alot more money than you doing things that profit off of all your hardwork, they dont deserve it right? And you are calling this Immoral.

Yes, yes I am. If you didnt make it, you dont deserve the profits off of it. And before anyone says anything about "Distribution, marketing and other things of this nature" that go into making this single product available for sale, I'm talking about the in game AH. In the real world things like makeing toys for example, there are people who make it, like the creators of the toy, and those who either mass market it and distribute it and make it both available to the public. The latter should be able to make money off of it since they did have a hand in its final stages of devolopment. In the AH in this game theres no way to "gussy up" a piece of equipment or material or other item. Its sold as is to the market.

Later on you say that those who make materials, and then have someone else turn them around for their own profit, are jealous. Dont make me laugh, they arent jealous, they're angry. Angry at the fact that someone who didnt put their time and effort into making something are reaping the benefits. I know that i would be angry if someone bought something off of me and then made ludicris(sp) amount of money off of it a few minuets after. I made the item, so why shouldnt i have the most profits off of it?

Afterwards you say taht we are trying to pass blame for inflation and say that if Mc Donalds were an auction and someone bid $100 for a burger that its the bidders fault. Well heres the thing, if Micky D's were the only way anyone could get a burger, provided there werent a Burger King, Wendy's, White Castle accross the street or around the block, i would wonder why someone would put a burger up for $100 in the first place. Sure i would laugh at someone who would pay that much for a burger but then again its not like they prolly didnt try to see if they could get it for less. In our AH, we have this little thing called a price history. With this price history, we are able to compare both the prices and the rate at which items leave.

So lets say that Micey D's has this as well. Ok. theres one that goes for $2.00 then later in the line one goes for $3.50 sure its a little steaper, but were hungry... Ok there seems to be 5 left and the last price was $5.00. Ok thats not too bad since i have enough to cover it. Place bid: $5.00... ok i cant buy it at that price, lets try $5.50. No, ok how about $6. And on and on till we hit around or near the target of $100. Now we must be going... "WTF is going on!?! Who would put up this burger for $100." Now if there were any other place we could get burgers or any other food of that sort then, while the person who put up a burger for that much will slowly lose all their money since no one in their right mind would bit there (and if they did they are as stupid as the seller is morally corrupt), it wont matter that much since we can just walk to anywhere else and get food. But if there isnt, and they only way we can eat is by paying insane amount of cash for a mesely burger, then that is a monopoly and wrong by everyones standards.

Let me be the first to tell you folks that there is nothing Immoral about making money the easy way.

That really depends on what the situation is and who you are asking. Sure there are relitivly easy ways of making money that are pretty moral like in Rones example of trading stocks and such. But there are alot of others that arent so moral by anyones standards. Monopolies are one of the ways to make easy money since there is no competition and you can charge whatever crazy prices you want. Then there are others which really dont need mentioning since its pretty obvious that where i'm willing to take this arguement, isnt necessilary where you ment your statement to go. So i'll just leave it at that.

However as you get wiser I would think you'd be smart enough to realize that very few in this world is totally innocent of what you are saying is immoral.

Just because I want whats better for those who work hard for their money verses those who take the easy way around working doesnt mean that I dont know that there are immoral people in this world. Its not that I or others dont understand, its that we want things to change.

If however they are, then it is most likely they are poor and they are very very religious, and I can respect that.

Yeah you respected it so much you said that our morality would change as soon as we came into money. :roll:

What does being poor or religious have to do with morality? There are very rich people and those who arent religious that know when things are immoral or not? How come many actors who are quite rich go out and protest things that have no direct effect on their lives? How come there are famous people who go out or their way to put speak on behalf of those who dont have a voice? Its because they know that there are some things that cannot be allowed in society for the sake of someone else making money.

lol, another thing I had to add was do you people shop at Walmart? lol.
Then you are all Immoral, imagine what all those third world country people are saying. They made all that cheap shit that your buying. Rolling Eyes
So are you now Immoral as well?

See this is where your whole arguement confuses me. In the begining you say that people have the right to do what they want with their money and use it however they want and how they are allowed to make "easy money". Oversees labor is very easy money since they dont have to pay their workers nearly as much as they do over here since they are either poor as hell and they are alot of the time children. I guess in your books this is moral. The owner of a sweatshop is using his own money to make a product? Its easy money right? The government allows it right? So i guess it MUST be moral?

Then in the next sentence you turn around and say that it is immoral? Sorry but you cant have it both ways. Pick a side of the fence and stay there when you argue.

Before you said that if someone were to pay $100 for a hamburger they were stupid. Now you are saying that if we are going to pay for something that is at a low price, we're immoral. So I guess were damned if we do and damned if we dont.