Why I hate flippers...

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krilox a écrit :

I'm sorry, abstract?

Yes, this is a magical economy where no real world principle applies because it's a game.

It's a basic principle, if you don't get it, don't be ignorant about it.

How much does shipping cost in Path of Exile?

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Xavderion a écrit :

I can't explain it any better, maybe my vocabulary is too limited? Just one thing, you are looking at the economy on an item per item basis; you should look at it as a whole.

It's no point really, people are ignorant, and not open to the fact that there might be a bigger picture.

Yet they're trying to counter something so obvious like this by pulling out single examples (Item x for sale for x amount) instead.

Let them think whatever they want i guess.

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KG31459 a écrit :

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krilox a écrit :

I'm sorry, abstract?

Yes, this is a magical economy where no real world principle applies because it's a game.

It's a basic principle, if you don't get it, don't be ignorant about it.

How much does shipping cost in Path of Exile?

The exact same amount as anything that doesnt need to get shipped.

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Xavderion a écrit :

I can't explain it any better, maybe my vocabulary is too limited? Just one thing, you are looking at the economy on an item per item basis; you should look at it as a whole.

I will concede that maybe flipper provided a service earlier in the game, when the only way to find something was trade chat or forum threads.

At that time yeah there was probably some convenience in knowing who had one of everything and massive time saved by being able to go straight to their thread.

However, indexing sites have changed the game. Anyone can find any item you ever linked in a WTS thread from months ago. The flipper no longer is providing a service anyone needs.

More significantly, the difference in what flippers pay to what they now resell for is ridiculous at this point.

I saw a guy post in a WTB Alt Art 2H axe thread that he wanted 100ex for the axe. I check his post history and he had just bought the axe from another guy for less than 1 exalted!!

How has he benefited the end buyer here?

They use the scarcity of items in this game to force people into paying astronomical prices to get gear.

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Fatalflaw a écrit :

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Xavderion a écrit :

I can't explain it any better, maybe my vocabulary is too limited? Just one thing, you are looking at the economy on an item per item basis; you should look at it as a whole.

I will concede that maybe flipper provided a service earlier in the game, when the only way to find something was trade chat or forum threads.

At that time yeah there was probably some convenience in knowing who had one of everything and massive time saved by being able to go straight to their thread.

However, indexing sites have changed the game. Anyone can find any item you ever linked in a WTS thread from months ago. The flipper no longer is providing a service anyone needs.

More significantly, the difference in what flippers pay to what they now resell for is ridiculous at this point.

I saw a guy post in a WTB Alt Art 2H axe thread that he wanted 100ex for the axe. I check his post history and he had just bought the axe from another guy for less than 1 exalted!!

How has he benefited the end buyer here?

They use the scarcity of items in this game to force people into paying astronomical prices to get gear.

I already adressed the issue where in a slow market, you have to sit on your items for a much longer time, which leaves you without currency to participate on the market (real bartering doesn't really exist in PoE). I'm taking krilox' advice and leaving this thread x( I really can't explain it better.

Xavderion and krilox, you are talking about liquidity in real life like it applies to POE, it doesn't.

The reason liquidity is important in real life, is because non moving product creates additional expense and because production requires additional resources. Basically, you can not produce too much without selling because it's expensive to store/maintain it and because you need to pay for material and/or work to produce it.

However in POE storage is free, albeit additional storage might create a bit of a hassle, but you can create as many accounts as you need. And item finding does not require any expense, you produce items during your normal play.

So please don't tell us how liquidity is very important for POE economy. You could argue that flippers provide better service by having nicer stores, being online more often for easier trades, but that is not always the case.

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Xavderion a écrit :

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KG31459 a écrit :

Hmm.

Explain to me again how, when I want to buy an item, a flipper increases the number of items available to me?

The liquidity of the market is much higher when flippers are involved, which means the amount of items in circulation is higher too and people can actually afford to buy stuff because they don't have to vastly underprice their items in order to make some currency.

If you sell an item that the flippers are interested in and buy one that they ignore, you profit from this but only then.

In reality it's more like this though:
You sell item A to a flipper for a bit more than you'd get from a normal player, then you buy item B from another flipper for a lot more than you'd pay to a normal player.
In the end, you lose and the flippers win.

Anything else wouldn't make any sense at all:
If one person makes a profit on a transaction, then another person has to make a loss to balance the scales.
If both parties make a profit, this either means that both parties make an imaginary profit but in reality noone makes any profit or one party makes more profit (which consits of imaginary profit and real profit) which essentially means that the other party does not make any real profit at all (but may still be very happy about the imaginary profit).


Methods like flipping never(!) really help the economy no matter whether we are talking about a game or real life.
All it does, is creating a bubble and once that bubble is there keep that bubble from blowing up.
(In real life, keeping those bubbles from blowing up is actually important for real because the collapse of all those imaginary constructs would make people do actual, real damage that would hurt (even kill) many people. In PoE, those consequences would be discardable though.)


I'm sure some people will disagree with what i say and maybe even bring some arguments right out of their economics classes but let's be honest: There are also a lot of (shockingly: educated) people who say that the world's economy is working just the way it is supposed to be (and even believe what they are saying).
Still, the fact that there is a complete field of science dedicated mostly to justifying what actually is complete bullshit, doesn't make things any better!


One last word besides the discussion about the strange idea that flipping actually helps its victims:
Telling people stories about how poor you are only to get an item cheap enough to be able to easily resell it for profit, is really, really low!
And saying that the victims of such scams are actually getting a fair price because they get what feels right to them, is abolute bullshit! If you go out of your way and sell an item below its actual value and below your asked price because you want to be nice to some poor noob, you are not getting what you want.
You are accepting a bad deal out of sheer goodwill and your friendlyness is exploited, there's nothing about this that you can call "fair" without blatantly lying!


tl;dr:
You think flipping helps the economy and therefore all players? Think again, but this time turn on your brain and apply at least some basic logic!

Also, making up stories to trick people into doing a trade that is bad for them and good for you isn't a proper way of doing business, it's just a scam. (Actually, it's the exact definition of a scam!)


PS:
Another thing about the idea that flippers make more items available:
You can't make an item that is already available more available buy buying it and offering it for a higher price, you can only make it just as available as before but at a higher price. (i.e. you can only make it more expensive which for people with limited ressources actually limits availability)

Yes, yes, yes, flippers makes the market more active, more trades, more currency exchanges and so on. We all know that. An active market is a good market. Blablabla.

But an item will ALWAYS be more expencive buying from a flipper. People worshiping flippers and flipping, are (for the most part) people with a lot of currency, doing a lot of trades, and doesn't make trades unless it goes quick. Often the same people crying "AH is a good thing", ang worshiping the economy of ARPGs as the most important part of the game.

For the regular man in the street, flipping is making everything more expencive.

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LogoOnPoE a écrit :

Xavderion and krilox, you are talking about liquidity in real life like it applies to POE, it doesn't.

The reason liquidity is important in real life, is because non moving product creates additional expense and because production requires additional resources. Basically, you can not produce too much without selling because it's expensive to store/maintain it and because you need to pay for material and/or work to produce it.

However in POE storage is free, albeit additional storage might create a bit of a hassle, but you can create as many accounts as you need. And item finding does not require any expense, you produce items during your normal play.

So please don't tell us how liquidity is very important for POE economy. You could argue that flippers provide better service by having nicer stores, being online more often for easier trades, but that is not always the case.

That's not true at all.

Liquidity is the accessibility and consumerism of the products.

What you're claiming is wrong based on two principles:

1. You do realize that digital products exist in the real life too right? Games, videos, programs etc are non-tangible, and do not cause additional expense because of production and do NOT require additional resources, and yet they follow the same principle.

The production potential is endless without an increase in costs whatever. This alone proves that you've no clue what you're talking about.

2. While item finding does not require any expense, the beauty of the POE economy is how the currency doubles as something useful other than a placeholder of value. So the economy itself is taken out of the game quite fast.


So please don't tell us how liquidity is not important based on your limited view of the big picture in economics.

Jeez.

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krilox a écrit :

So please don't tell us how liquidity is not important based on your limited view of the big picture in economics.

Translation: "Please stop thinking for yourself and start believing in those fancy terms we have made up to sound more credible!"