Agent B MiB,
I'd suggest studying economics, and learning why merchants exist.
Merchants exist because they provide needed services.
Yes, there are dishonest merchants.
There are also drunk drivers. That doesn't mean driving is bad.
If merchants were not providing a wanted and needed service, they could not make any money at all.
Basically, what merchants do is provide goods and services where and when people want them. To do this, they gather the goods and services from their sources, stock them as needed, and make them available at the buyers' convenience. They get paid for that service in the form of a markup on the goods and services.
In the old RS, one of the primary functions of merchants was to buy small quantities of items from resource-gatherers at lower prices, combine them into large quantities, and sell them to skillers at higher prices. This saved skillers hours of buying small quantities from large numbers of players. The time saved in getting a large quantity of the item all at once was worth the extra paid for those items.
Legitimate GE merchants provide the service of making sure there is a buyer any time a seller wants to sell an item, and making sure there is a seller any time a buyer wants to buy an item. The markup the merchant receives is payment for providing that constant flow of buyers and sellers, and for keeping the market in various items fluid.
As a byproduct of this, merchants help stabilize prices on the GE. They aim to buy when prices are low, and sell when prices are high, thus smoothing out what would otherwise be much wider price swings.
There are many other services merchants provide.
Once free trade comes back, the services merchants can provide will be greatly expanded.
That will be better for all players--even for players who don't understand economics and rant about those terrible, selfish merchants.
I'd suggest studying economics, and learning why merchants exist.
Merchants exist because they provide needed services.
Yes, there are dishonest merchants.
There are also drunk drivers. That doesn't mean driving is bad.
If merchants were not providing a wanted and needed service, they could not make any money at all.
Basically, what merchants do is provide goods and services where and when people want them. To do this, they gather the goods and services from their sources, stock them as needed, and make them available at the buyers' convenience. They get paid for that service in the form of a markup on the goods and services.
In the old RS, one of the primary functions of merchants was to buy small quantities of items from resource-gatherers at lower prices, combine them into large quantities, and sell them to skillers at higher prices. This saved skillers hours of buying small quantities from large numbers of players. The time saved in getting a large quantity of the item all at once was worth the extra paid for those items.
Legitimate GE merchants provide the service of making sure there is a buyer any time a seller wants to sell an item, and making sure there is a seller any time a buyer wants to buy an item. The markup the merchant receives is payment for providing that constant flow of buyers and sellers, and for keeping the market in various items fluid.
As a byproduct of this, merchants help stabilize prices on the GE. They aim to buy when prices are low, and sell when prices are high, thus smoothing out what would otherwise be much wider price swings.
There are many other services merchants provide.
Once free trade comes back, the services merchants can provide will be greatly expanded.
That will be better for all players--even for players who don't understand economics and rant about those terrible, selfish merchants.
18-Jan-2011 14:41:47
