Greetings fellow Capsuleers,
I have come here today to ponder this question, and to get feedback on the logical process I will outline below.

As most of you probably know already, mining minerals comes down to can I make more ISk mining as opposed to other EVE activities? Mostly, the answer is no. While you are mining, you could be running sites, or doing L4 missions, all of which typically give you more ISK than just plain old mining. Especially if you include salvage.

This is pretty common knowledge and it makes sense. Here's where the cookie crumbles however.

Grats to OP for successfully posting the umpteenth Free Minerals thread without an immediate backlash from teh MD trolls. Amazing. Simply amazing. 10/10 and 5 bonus points for Gryffindor.

This discussion never fails to amaze me. Talking about free things in EVE is a multi-layered argument almost no one gets right. Except maybe VV, sort of.

At the in game level, minerals are "free" minus the investment costs of skillbooks and equipment. The **** is sitting right out there in the open and no ISK comes out of your wallet. That is the definition of free.

Cue the "opportunity cost" crowd. Opportunity costs are comparative calculations used for determining the best use of your time. They are not actual money. Everybody got that? It's not money in your pocket. It's theoretically what you would make if you spent your time doing something else. Theoretically. Conditions can change rapidly. Perhaps a miner calculates that the best use of his time and resources is station trading. He finally gets his act together and takes the plunge. Two weeks later the market crashes for his selected products, ruining his plans. Whatever opportunity cost he calculated is now utterly irrelevant and it definitely wasn't money in his pocket. In fact, doing the opportunity cost in retrospect, he will find it cost him dearly. Just because you might have made more doing something else, doesn't mean that you did, nor does it mean that the money you were dreaming about was ever real. Mining minerals doesn't "cost" you lost ISK.

At the out of game level, nothing in EVE is free, no matter whether it was scammed, found, or stolen. You paid either ~500million ISK or $15. You might get a better "deal" for your plex or dollars with more or less ISK earned during the month, but you still paid for the opportunity to participate at all.

At the real life level, as VV and others pointed out, the ultimate commodity is Time. Everything else is relative. Strangely, time is free. You don't have to pay to get days added to your "account." It won't accrue interest. It can't be bought or sold. There are no hedge funds against death (cue someone with link to hedge fund that is based on life insurance policy trading, but you get my point). At the real life level, the opportunity costs of playing EVE are pretty high. Which, theoretically, means that the more time you put into the game the less valuable anything you acquire in the game really is. What if the next million dollar idea was about to drift up out of the random thoughts you were having when you stumbled on this thread? But it was drowned out by the sudden rage engendered by the goddamn, neverending Minerals are Free argument? How do you calculate the opportunity cost of the Road Not Taken?

Conclusion: Minerals are free. Time is free. EVE is not.

Ultimately, this argument is pointless. But EVE nerds will be nerds I guess :P

If minerals I mine aren't free the BC won't cost 40m on market.

There is 1.5m profit from buying minerals on market and building a BC from that. No one would ever bother to loose time to haul all that minerals to production station just for 1.5m of profit when you can make 20m just from bounties on average lv4 mission and it will take you 20 minutes to complete.

From trader point of view it is also not worth to invest 38m in minerals just to have 40m return.

I would say that entire T1 market is filled with people who thinks "minerals I mine are free".

If you go and mine minerals while doing all of the above, because you don't really need to pay too much attention when in HiSec, are your minerals free or not?

I say they are because if you weren't mining, you would be chilling at the station.

What say you?

If you find a dollar on the ground, is it free? Or do you do an opportunity cost analysis before you bend down to pick it up?

Thankfully I read the forums and some guides (ISK the ultimate guide and the resource pages)
This made me roll a trader instead of a miner, and today I am glad, since I would never be able to have the bankroll I have right now, with a t1 mining frigate.

i recently broke my old miners out of storage. i did some semi afk mining with two hulks over the weekend while i was grading papers and tests. i am 280mil richer for a total of 6 to 8 hrs of two clicks every 3 minutes. also, all my papers and tests are graded. can't pvp while doing that.

Fair enough, however I am nowhere near close to mining in anything that will yield that.
I am 2 weeks into this game, and I have amassed (thanks to the helpful players and guides here) around 300M ISK.
I could never have made that mining.

Fair enough, however I am nowhere near close to mining in anything that will yield that.
I am 2 weeks into this game, and I have amassed (thanks to the helpful players and guides here) around 300M ISK.
I could never have made that mining.

... retriever. you can get into one in less than a week....

I have to agree that you always have to look at the opportunity cost so the minerals are not free. Though I would just say you are mining ore, which are refined into minerals... not mining minerals.


The only thing that might be as close to free as possible though, given the very short amount of time, is looking at my bio and playing my isk doubling game. Of course, many will skim through and it will actually cost them quite a bit. But you are different- you are smart and will follow the rules and win big so that you can double, triple or 5x your isk- which again is probably the only "free" isk in this game.

But sitting around shooting rocks for hours at time, no that is not free in any way. Especially when you get ganked and lose your mining vessel.

Of all the activities in EVE, scamming has the absolute highest opportunity cost, with one exception--getting scammed.

btw if you'd like to prove that your business model is real, feel free to post your full api so we can take a look at your wallet.