As an FYI, in FF XIV 1.0, nearly ALL regular Monsters you killed dropped Shards.
For a long time, most players *just playing the game* (killing Dungeon Mobs, not even Gathering) would have THOUSANDS of Shards in their Inventory.
And it worked beautifully: It eliminated any RMT trying to control the Shard market (because any average Adventurer / Player can just naturally get tons of Shards just playing the game, without gathering).
Then Yoshi P changed it and made Shards, Crystals far more rare, which in turn only benefits RMT Botters and those with massive amounts of time. (I think it was a bad decision.)
It worked fine in 1.0 with excess (so that anyone could try out Crafting or sell their excess Shards / Crystals if they didn't care). Sounds great.