I give up, the bots win AKA: My flight is scheduled for departure

[Jojoya]

Jojoya,

you are wrong. its that simple.

Wrong about what specifically? If you're arguing against all my points as usual simply because I refuse to hop on the "SE is evil and imcompetent" bandwagon with you, it goes to show how ignorant you are of all the systems in the game and how they interrelate.

They are making efforts to enforce botting. Players would not be going into that other thread saying "such and such character I was tracking as a bot has disappeared from the marketboard" if there was zero enforcement.

We can't know why other tracked characters are still there other than the possibility that SE is not finding any evidence of bot activity. You cannot know what another player is doing unless you're looking at them. Spending time in an apartment is not evidence of botting. And if a player wants to spend that time crafting while in their apartment, that is not a crime either. Crafting is only against ToS if there is automation via third party app being used. I've spend 5-6 hours at a stretch before in my house crafting. Does that make me a bot?

Is enforcement inadequate? Probably. I won't deny that because it's inadequate in every MMO I've ever played. Every MMO has its bot problems.

But to claim SE is doing nothing at all is patently false. And if you thinking changing the TOS is going to get people to stop cheating, you are ignorant of human nature beyond all belief.

The average player does use the mb and it is more convenient to do so. Practically speaking, if you have the time to gather and grind the materials you want or the lets say mount from PotD, feel free to do it. But if you have limited time per day, you want to earn gil so you can afford yourself some nice stuff (submarine minions for example), then indeed you have to use the mb.
Sure, its a playstyle thing, but that doesnt erase the marketing problem. And if you want to earn a lot of gil in short time, selling crafted things on the market board should be one of the easiest actually.
Why would I have to grind treasure maps for 4h, just for a small CHANCE to get 1 valuable cloth/leather/whatever, to sell it for 1-2million anyway?
If you want to afford a L house +decoration, thats quite a sum and an unrewarding one at that.

Imo its not about voting with your wallet thing, its about making a higher "call" so the devs catch the wind of this problem. It has been indeed a long time now those botters got away and I think its time to end it, no?

Except those who are only buying from the MB benefit from the bot activity because the bots are generally willing to sell substantially lower than a normal player is. People don't complain about having to pay less to get what they want.

It's the normal players who are selling on the MB that feel the negative impact because they are earning less gil.

Whether you call it "Voting with your wallet" or "making a 'higher' call ", it comes down to the same thing - a pointless gesture if you're trying to influence development. If you're unhappy, decide to make a change for your own sake and not because you think it's going to influence others. If players would do things because it's what they enjoy rather than doing them because they think it's what others expect them to do or they might be able to influence others by their choices, it would be easier for developers to figure out what players actually like.