Stupid idea.

Needs moved to F&I where it can die the death it deserves.

If someone dont wanna pay the price you want, dont haul it! I agree hauling isnt worthwhile profession because of ppl who put miserable rewards in the contracts, but I dont think forcing a particular fixed price is the correct solution.

Corps such as Red Frog dont need fixed prices to work.

Supply, meet demand....

The correct price for a courier contract is the minimum price necessary to get a courier to promptly service your contract. Good contracts are snatched up, bad contracts remain, resulting in the appearance that no one is paying a reasonable rate on the contracts. Eve is a sandbox, don't try to have CCP exempt your preferred job from the sandbox.

No, the collateral is the insurance the originator of the contract has that you won't steal his stuff. That is immaterial to the money you should be paid to haul it. That actually comes from the number of jumps, the route you have to take, etc.

This won't work as you intend it to. More people will put more of the hauling loads on their alts and/or friend's alts and/or dedicated hauling corps so they can avoid paying the "fixed" tax... pretty much the same way people make "shell corps" to avoid the NPC tax. Savvy people (i.e. the people with the ISK) will ALWAYS find ways around this to avoid paying the tax at all costs. Newbies (i.e. people with limited ISK) will have a harder time.

Ai Shun sums up what the point against you is.

Collateral is only to stop you stealing my stuff or pretending you lost it. The distance it needs to be moved is the determining factor for the payment.

This comparison does not work. You are not taking into account that, in EVE, the courier has to pay this huge amount of collateral, which probably is close or the same as the value of the shipment. Then I, the client, does not need any insurance. I don't care how much risk you take when hauling my stuff, since I'm already covered for theft, pirates or what have you.

In EVE it makes sense to reward the hauler based on the time it takes to haul and the size of the shipment.

You see it as fair but I see it as no one using public hauler services. It is that simple. I would switch to private contracts with Red Frog as they are exempt from your massive jump in fees.

The next step would probably be to advertise for hauling corps on the forums and probably pay less than I do now.

This does not need to be added to the game. The courier contract system is fine "as-is" and the fact that there are at least (2) full-time hauling companies (PUSH and Red Frog Freight) shows that it's working. Not to mention the dozens of smaller haulers who survive on networking with customers and have private clientele.

I dont get what your problem here is.

Not supported.

If you don't like the pay available, start or join a hauling corp like Red Frog].

If you feel that the reward is not enough, then don't accept the contract. Someone else will . . .

RF does not have a monopoly - otherwise how do you explain PUSH? At best, they have a duopoly.

Why are they so successful and why do they get so much business?

- Good word of mouth advertising and reputation.
- A standard fee schedule, which means I can predict my shipping expenses
- Professional level of service (no drama, both have good completion times, etc)

There is no "establsihed" monopoly in shipping, only the lack of effort for someone else to attempt to out-compete RF and PUSH.

In short, there's no problem here with the courier market - you just need to be smart about which contracts you accept, pay close attention to routing / over-inflated collaterals and other obvious traps.

This all kind of pointless though; CCP is never going to institute anything like set pricing.

Now that i think about it, one problem with this is that it could pretty much kill the shipping business in eve since it's so easy to haul your own stuff for free if there is no haulers to haul your stuff. No need for supply if there is no demands.

A fixed rate is going to make more rewarding couriers probably less rewarding, especially on long routes, because it dictates what something should be.