There won't be much of a market for sand because crystals and shards are so cheap.

To the extent that river or sea sand moves on the market, it will probably come from mining rather than culinarians, because the culinarians would want too much money for it because of the shards used to make it.

Thus the only market for sand now is for alchemists who want to use it to level up on...but there will probably be cheaper pathways.

So overall, getting rid of fine sand is thus a boon to RMT because it will help to increase demand and boost prices for crystals and shards. They have huge huge huge huge stockpiles of crystals and shards already.

This is another change that makes me suspect that there are corrupt SE employees who work with the RMT companies for a fee or a cut of the profits or whatever.

I guess we'll see how it plays out, but I'm pretty confident RMT will soon be acquiring a lot of gil from players as shard prices rise again.