Yes, as someone who's always hardcore in eco in every mmo he's ever played this games eco is pretty much already ruined, thus removing most of the reason I play this game. As it is now the highest demand item in this game, shards, are overun with botters dropping the prices so low that no one even bothers to compete.

Let's say hypothetically there were no botters farming shards, the demand would still exist and the supply would drop increasing the prices of shards and thus increasing the prices of all finished products. This may seem like a bad thing but for those who are farming those shards it creates a good source of income, enough income to buy those finished products. Farming shards is also also not restricted to botany and mining, it's actually quicker to kill the mobs that drop shards then to mine/botanise them so anyone can farm shards.