A player usually monitors the other machines. The "runner". You'll also see that sometimes they don't always link properly, accept the teleport at the same time and a handful of other little things that let you know they're not in full sync.

Much like the actual bot community, there's an underground for folks that purchase game currency and they are indeed buying gil (*still* buying gil even).

A poor example would be in Aion at English launch. You could farm for a week to get money for craft recipes, training skills, inventory space, auction house dibs, etc. Or you could buy an intense week's worth of farming for the equivalent of a candy bar at a vending machine. Save a week of time, have fun playing the game, rather than farming to prepare to have an enjoyable game session in the future... for the cost of 300 calories you don't really want. T'was evil temptation.