To be completely honest, I believe that Jagex is an ethical company and they do have the players best interest at mind. Proofs of this have been very subtle, from the trade limit and the stabilising of the Runescape economy.
Although, the trade limit falls under both categories, as Jagex implemented this to prevent players from acquiring large sums of GP rapidly.
Bots also played a vital role in lowering the cost of resources by increasing the supply without changing the demand; thus lowering the overall value of the commodities. Jagex worked hard to reward the legitimate players by lowering the productivity. (slowing down the acquisition of the materials and the speed at which they were sold) by removing the bots.
(A player who works hard and honestly is more profitable for them)
For that reason, one can question Jagex' ethics.
On the other hand, I see Jagex as a money craving entity, lacking any moral or ethical backbone.
By removing the wilderness, Runescape lost a whole lot of players. This lowered Jagex' revenues drastically. Furthermore, to add insult to injury many gold farmers and other major botters used fake credit card numbers which were just a huge headache to deal with for the company; eliminating them was a must.
To combat the lose in revenue, Jagex found ways to make money and still be able to operate smoothly. What was this easy fix? Simple, find the players who used Macros with legitimate credit cards and let them operate.
The fact of the matter, is that Jagex could still make money off of the accounts while keeping a close eye on them, waiting to ban them outright. This is why when an account gets banned for macroing it is never banned instantaneously; it takes a few months from the time it is first caught.
21-Dec-2010 23:27:21
