Eh... that's solid economics that says "someone else got this much for selling something similar or identical to my product, but I only got that much so i lost money".

Time is a factor in profit, not just the end numbers that mean something. If you buy something for 100 and sell it for 200, you didn't just make 100. That's an overly simplistic thing that takes into account absolutely nothing and is representative of why our economy is in the crap right now honestly.

Tons and tons and tons of factors go into reducing that 100 "profit" figure into something significantly less meaningful. How long did it take you to sell it? Every minute is worth money. If you bought it for 100 and sold it for 200 instantly you probably did make a 100 profit. (and subsequently the person who sold for 150 did in fact lose 50 in profit)

It's one of the basic facts of Opportunity Cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_theory_of_value

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_cost

Those are some basics of economics. Most people probably won't understand them because people like to have a childlike simplicity with their money.

This is why the real-world economy is crap, and it's why many WoW economies are crap too. However, in both situations intelligent people who understand economics and have the ability and desire to work bad situations to their advantage are able to profit greatly.

What the whiner who's finding it hard to make money selling their stuff needs to do, is find a way to make it profitable. Maybe it means they buy up all the underpriced supply and re-list it themselves (it doesn't take a ton of effort, but it takes moderate intelligence to not lose your ass). Maybe it means they find alternate methods of selling that don't involve the auction house, maybe they just figure out a different way to use the components they have, whatever. There's profit everywhere. You just have to have the smarts to figure it out and understand the fundamentals of economics.

just because it's a video game world, doesn't mean it doesn't adhere to the constraints of real world economic principles, and with multiple millions of players in the game you better believe that there are at least a few people on every server with a superior understanding of economics that are getting rich off the lack of intelligence of the majority.

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