I just...don't care anymore.

[Porkchop]

This is a social game.
Make allies. Form long term working relationships with gatherers (extra mats for gear, bulk purchases etc). Look for crafters to mentor or the ones that arent interested in doing high end crafting for extra tokens.
Yes you need some sort of capital at first till you get the ball rolling but you guys here are high end crafters, you know how to make moolah.

The only gathering i did for the past month is to cap red scrip, i just couldn't stand favors lol.
But still i manage to make 20-30 pieces a week (some for myself, some for others), and make some profit to boot.
I realize most people want to be able to self-sustain but one look at the system is enough to figure out that you simply aren't supposed to do this alone.