Hi,
I am a full out carebear that rarely ever leaves hi-sec. I make several billion in profit each month (after calculating PLEX payments for each account) off mission running and mining with my fleet. If things stay this way I will have immense amounts of ISK to my name before I even know it.
As such I am honestly one of the last people who should speak out against hi-sec profits. But I am. I believe game balance is more important than my personal profit and what we have here is a lack of game balance.

Right now a person can make more ISK/hour (consistently) mining with a fleet in hi-sec than they can anywhere else doing anything else, with one exception: Hi-sec multibox mission runner/hauler ganking.
The scenario we have is thus: The biggest ISK earners are doing so in hi-sec, and the biggest ISK takers are also doing so in hi-sec.

This is counter to the entire point of low/null sec - increased risk for potential increase in reward.

I will not go into the details of exactly why hi-sec is so profitable, I hope discussion in this thread can touch on that. ]However I will relay an idea here.

We could commit these changes to hi-sec:
- Reduce bounties and agent payments for hi-sec missions.
- Reduce the amount of ores in hi-sec that are not Veldspar and Plagioclase.
- Reduce the quantities per rock to 2 cycles max and commonly just 1.


What does this result in?
- Mission running in low/null - with a disposable fit - would now be more profitable than running them in hisec.
- Only small time miners can really keep up in hi-sec. Large scale mining fleets will struggle to find belts with large enough per rock quantities to be worth their time. Very few large scale mining fleets are willing to lock onto a new rock with each barge every time a cycle is completed.

Carebears are only willing to put themselves in danger if there is a significant profit incentive. As of right now the profit incentive really isn't there, coupled with the fact that we make more than we desire anyways in hi-sec.

Profit reduction in hi-sec = Increased profit margin for low/null = Increased activity in low/null

Seems like a simple enough formula...

As such the big ISK earners in hi-sec will need to move their butts into low/null if they hope to keep up the profits.