We don't need anymore gil sinks

[Illmaeran]

Isn't that exactly my point? You are just coasting on legacy privilege to accumulate all that gil.

I'm sorry, but what? Legacy privilege? That's a bogus concept. Assuming a player hasn't engaged RMT services, everything he or she has they've earned themselves. There is no hereditary exchange of wealth, no stocks or bonds, no savings accounts with accumulation of interest, no government subsidy programs, nothing. A player has to earn everything through their own effort.

People who have been playing the game longer typically have a greater pool of resources than newer players because they've had a longer period of time to earn those resources. It's not a matter of inequality, it's a matter of personal choice and investment. By that, I mean a long-term player *chose* to begin playing the game sooner than a newer player. They *chose to invest their time and effort* in the game and have benefitted from the return on that investment of time and effort. This is not the real world where socio-economic factors influence peoples' exposure to opportunities for advancement. Everyone starts off with exactly the same resources. It can't get more equal and equitable than that.

Economies change. The economy on my server is much different than it was in 2014. It's gone through ups, downs, changes in supply, changes in population, all of that. Right now, it's being heavily influenced by bots, market cartels, and the availability of high-value crafted goods through PVE activities and retainers. All of this has impacted players' ability to earn gil and those who continue to earn a lot are having to *invest a lot of time and effort* into making it. I've got 1080 days (2.9 years) of sub time since 2014 on my account and have earned roughly 25 million gil in that time. I'll be the first to admit I've been incredibly lazy when it comes to making money. About the only time I have a significant amount of valuable items to put on the MB is after a push to level my gatherers and crafters and have unused materials. I know people who started playing years after I did but have hundreds of millions of gil *because they invested their time and effort into making it*. I chose to be a casual butterfly who does whatever I feel like doing at any given time since that's the way I'm able to continue enjoying playing for long periods of time.

There's no exploitation of people with lesser means. There is no labor force to exploit. There are no entities who engage the services of others for their own profit. Yes, the people with a significant amount of wealth have likely used the MB to earn at least a portion of that. However, that in no way, shape, or form equals exploitation of others. Goods are put up for sale at a given price and if someone wants to buy said goods for that price, they will. If they don't want to or can't, they won't. If a player *chooses* to depend on others to supply the items they need or want that's on them. There's always the option to gather and make the majority of items on the MB if one isn't willing or able to pay the listed price. Again, it's about *choosing how to invest time and effort*.

TL;DR- The concept of Legacy Privilege and assertion that everyone with any significant pool of resources have cheated or exploited others are bogus. All players start off with exactly the same resources. Wealth is the result of how a player has chosen to invest time and effort in the game.

Do you know how hard it is for a new player to earn the same amount of gil?

I started an alt a week ago. She's now level 56 and has only done roulettes and the Main Story Quests since she outleveled the side quests by 10 levels at 30. She just finished 2.3 so has three whole patches left in ARR content. In that time she accumulated 685,000 gil. I didn't give her any from my main. I did send her some crafted gear so she was able to take the gil bags rather than gear so let's be generous and say that was worth 100K gil so far, bringing her total to 585,000 gil earned *strictly through PVE, no crafting, no gathering, no selling*. I'm sure it would have been much more had I continued doing side quests. It's not unreasonable to think a player could get 1,000,000 gil only doing roulettes and quests through the course of ARR. That's more than enough to start playing the market if one's so inclined.