Quote:
Originally Posted by Keroko
.... You do realize that these are the very basics upon which trade works, right? Buy low, sell high is the most basic of basic principle of trade.
It's not stealing and he is not an 'unnecessary middleman' He is the buyer, who buys from the seller. The only way he could steal from you is if an agreement of trade had already been reached. It hadn't, therefore the trade is fair and thus he has stolen nothing.
In fact, with a similar twist of logic I can claim that you are stealing from him. What are you going to do with those Icethorns? You'll turn them into pots which you'll consume, and chances are you'll get next to nothing in return. Jazz, however, makes his money from these items. By buying these items before him, you are effectively robbing him of all chances of making money.
Trade is never an easy thing. 
Personally, I love playing the Auction House like this, and consequently loathe the idiots who keep undercutting. They don't seem to realize that if they blindly keep undercutting one another, they'll only earth a tenth of what they could earn. When I don't have the capital yet, I tend to go for the average price, hoping that the cheaper stacks will sell out quickly so mine get their turn. Sometimes it pays of, sometimes it doesn't.
I tend to get rich very fast as long as I have gathering professions. Gather the resources, put them on the AH, build capital, buy low and sell high, keep repeating the gathering/auctioning and buying/selling and control the market.
That's why arguably my biggest mistake ever was choosing to level Alchemy with my Death Knight. *sigh* I should have sold those herbs... |
...you do realize that we're also the buyers, right? By keeping prices lower, I spend less when I turn around to buy things. If we all kept the prices low, we could all buy things, and it ends up being exactly the same except more newbie friendly, and then you wouldn't have to regret training alchemy. Win-win. And money has no value whatsoever other than what you can buy with it. While raising prices gives you tons of money, it also
lowers the value of your own money. You create nothing, and end up where you started.
Also, why do you loathe undercutters? You rely on them to play the AH. If no one undercut anyone, no one could make money like that (especially due to the AH cut). Making money off the AH is a zero sum game: some people need to lose in order for other people to win. There's nothing wrong with that, I just hate the attitude of superiority the winners have, as if by educating the masses we could all be winners and that the losers must be stupid. That's blatantly false: playing the AH only works because you're taking advantage of people who don't care about saving up video game money. I'd be happy if people acknowledged this, but most people who play the AH don't.
Edit: Oh, and historically, traders provide a service. They move goods from where they're produced to where they're consumed. The money they make is the fee for that service. The WoW AH already provides this service. People who buy from the AH and then resell on the very same AH are basically scalpers. It's a legitimate way of making money, but I wouldn't be proud of it.