Aissa
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Posted - 2003.10.02 23:12:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Aissa on 02/10/2003 23:13:02
You'd only do what will naturally occur over time, and even then you wouldn't have a true monopoly because of one of the underlying problems that isn't a jumpgate.
I'll explain that a little later on.
Free market systems, unless propped up with things like tariffs, taxes, import/export restrictions, new markets, and the other plethora of structural systems, the naturally collapse over time. It doesn't actually matter who and how many are doing it as long as monopolies or ologopolies haven't formed. It is a natural function of the system according Keynsian Economic theory.
Incedentally, by your premise, all you'd need to do is find systems that exist 10-15 jumps out from supergates - and many do exist - to find demand/markets. Not many bother given the low demand, but its there - but you can't find it since it is always forced to move towards the supergate systems because there is no supply. Time as they say is money. Do I pay 200k for the item from the guy selling 1 jump from me, or for 150k if I make a 20-30 jump round trip? A 15-20 jump round trip?
How much of an opportunity cost is involved in both? That's about 20-30 minutes of time, which for me can be anywhere from 100k of cold hard ISK from agent missions, or a certain amount of minerals mined, a wad of ISK plus recyclables plus the chance at a rare drop that could be worth millions.
The more expensive the item, the further someone might travel to acquire the item.
Of course, this is where one of the real problems are, but nobody wants to talk about it. The market loot NPC rats provide - zero-cost market-ready items. Any real cost involved in killing an NPC rat is fully absorbed by the CONCORD bounty. Since demand for items is already low, a manufacturing monopoly ends up competing with the virtually zero-input rat hunters.
So one way to improve the market is to actually remove the zero-input rat dropped market items. The bounty plus the chance at a rare drop would be enough to keep the profession viable and might help the server database as fewer loot cans get ejected into the environment until they expire. While this won't make a much of a big impact now (until existing supplies dry up, get recycled, etc), it would've at the beginning.
Of course, this all hinges on actually making the game unfair, which is what a market needs. It requires unequal access to production system, and while EVE has a few restrictions, they certainly aren't enough to prevent every Tom, D i c k and Harry from having access to a bunch of BPs and a Factory. The more producers in the system, the faster it collapses. Fewer producers slow this system down, and if you have a small enough number (less than 10-12) ologopolies tend to form to prevent the market from buckling.
Doh, so much for posting under an alt...I always enjoyed the silence
~Aissa
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