Decays
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Posted - 2007.05.17 15:39:00 -
[1]
Macro/Sweatshop mining as a business
IĘve seen lots of debate here about macro miners and how they are scum etc.
So I thought IĘd have a look at the actual monies involved.
LetĘs assume I am in Vietnam and I want to make some cash.
The minimum wage in Vietnam works out at between 318 dollars and 477 dollars per annum.
(I picked Vietnam as a computer literate country with easy access to broadband. For really cheap labour try Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Haiti or Cuba)
So letĘs be generous and offer 500 dollars per annum to workers to macro mine for me. Now I want this to be a 24 hour 365 operation so to cover three 8 hour shifts weekends etc I need 5 people and that allows for holidays sickness etc.
500 dollars per annum by 5 people is 2.5K
(500 x 5 = 2,500)
Other costs are 15 dollars per month per account and I reckon a person could run 5 accounts at once if they were mining. So 12 months by 15 dollars by 5 accounts is 900 Dollars for the year.
(12 x 15 x 5 = 900)
So my total costs for the year are 3.4K
(2500 + 900 = 3,400)
LetĘs see how much we can make. It is generally agreed that 1 account can mine 100 million ISK of ore per 24 hours. Currently 100 million ISK sells for 7.5 dollars.
5 accounts earning 7.5 dollars each give me 13.5K per annum
(5 x 7.5 x 365 = 13,687.5)
Subtract my running costs of 3.4K and IĘve made over 10K
(13,687.5 ū 3,400 = 10,287.5)
Remember that 500 dollars is the minimum annual wage, we have just made a profit of over 20 times the minimum wage.
(10,287.5 / 500 = 20.57)
In the US at the moment the minimum wage is 10,712 dollars per annum. So in US terms this is a profit equivalent of earning 220,000 dollars per year.
(20.57 x 10,712 = 220,345.84)
I havenĘt allowed for capital costs of machines or broadband access, electricity etc but considering broadband is state subsidised and if you canĘt get cheap PCs in Asia I give up, you can see why macro mining is an industry.
And it exists for the same reasons as drug industries, prostitution etc. There is a demand. Remove the demand and you remove the problem.
Suppose I could macro build Titans. (Not likely but you never know) And suppose I could offer you a fully kitted out Titan for 50 dollars. Cash. Would you buy it? Could you buy it?
For most players it would be of no use, you just don't have the skills to use it. The game rules forbid it and there is no way around it. Take a similar approach to ISK. Stick in a hard cap of SP to ISK. Say 25 to 1. For each SP you can have a max of 25 ISK. A 3m SP player can have 75m ISK.
Or have a sliding scale.
trial accounts limited to 5m ISK regardless of SP
0 to 5m SP limited to 25 to 1 max.
5m to 20m SP limited to 100 to 1 max
20m plus SP unlimited.
Its easy to implement, hard to beat.
Food for thought.
Decays
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