Odin's economy factors... Interesting read.

[Spider-Dan]

Once again, lack of basic understanding of economics hits the FFXI playerbase in the face. At this point, pretty much any time I see the words "undercutting" or "price gouging" (in-game or on forums), my internal word filter replaces them with "I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW ECONOMICS WORK".

Let us suppose that you are holding a shiny new Sprocket+1 in your hand. You visit your local AH, only to find that the evil RMT have "undercut" the price by selling to themselves. What are your options?

1) burn money on AH fees in a futile attempt to sell your item at the old value
2) sell your item at the artifically reduced value while whining about the Red Menace
3) wait until RMT jack up the prices, sell your item, and start lighting your cigars with hundred dollar bills

There is nothing that RMT can do that circumvents the law of supply and demand. The most that they can do is stall it for a bit, and the only people who are hurt are those who are too impatient to wait for the market correction.

Finally: consider that if legit players are really willing to pay 500k for a Woodville's (or willing to sell an Elusive for 20k), then that's what they are ACTUALLY worth? I know, it's a tough concept to grasp.

[vagus]

Spider Dan, some people just don't know how to shop. Lol.

[DAKPluto]

Looks less like duping and more of a money laundering. Look how they sell Woodsman rings to themselves for 80k, then go off and buy some for 380k. Could be dupes, but if I had to guess, they are cleaning their gil to make it harder for the task force to trace down the banks.

[Katoke]

Finally: consider that if legit players are really willing to pay 500k for a Woodville's (or willing to sell an Elusive for 20k), then that's what they are ACTUALLY worth? I know, it's a tough concept to grasp.

Or people are just retarded and buy things at the last priced AH sale / sell things at that without looking at the history or having knowledge of what the item was worth before they attempted to sell it.

[Gere]

Once again, lack of basic understanding of economics hits the FFXI playerbase in the face. At this point, pretty much any time I see the words "undercutting" or "price gouging" (in-game or on forums), my internal word filter replaces them with "I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW ECONOMICS WORK".

Oh man I do the same thing, especially when the idiots on alla make topic telling everyone they shouldn't undercut because they're "hurting the economy" and "stuff should sell in the order it was put up, not lowest price" .