Quote Originally Posted by WinnipegJet View Post
A free market is in theory an unrestricted economy yes... the "invisible hand" guides it first and foremost. But in 99.9% of cases there will be some macro level controls that affect pricing. It's difficult to say for certain, but we probably won't see a dramatic shift in the pricing of these items until something superior comes out. Keep in mind, the principle of undercutting is based on the tradeoff of earning less revenue for a quicker sale. Such is why you see people undercut by 1 gil, 100 gil, 1000 gil, or whatever. People will not undercut an item to the point where it's undervalued because the free market will correct this.
Hi Onion,

Great points. But I would say there are reasons we have the SEC and laws for Anti-Trust / Monopolies / Price Dumping, etc.

With the crappy way Price Listings are displayed right now (Top 20 Cheapest only), an RMT Corporation can easily load up 1 Char (with 2 Retainers) and price dump an item to control that market. They have an army of RMT / Bots at their disposal to price dump at super low prices and drive away real Crafters & Gatherers, and then control prices then.

Square has no one monitoring or regulating the markets. There are no Anti-Trust / Price-Dumping Protection schemes in place.

Overall I think there are a few different things being discussed here. Individual players wanting to get rid of their items or sell faster... sure they can undercut each other by various amounts and wage their little "price wars"... and then there are RMT Corporations / Bots / People with a lot of resources / multiple retainers on their hands that want to Price Dump / Control Markets. That's a bigger issue IMHO.

It's a pretty low activity game right now... but I wonder how much worse it might get once 2.0 hits?