Forums

Ignoring all the pessimists in this thread; TF2 trading is still right as fun as it's been in the past, just far less populous. With so much more supply in unusuals and the same overall demand, it may seem as if you get less offers, less interest on your hats, but the core of it all, flipping hats around, buying discounted stuff, trading it for slightly less sucky stuff and building a bigger backpack, is still kicking. I traded from 2013-2017 and came back in 2020-2024, and a lot of things are still the same. You can still snag good deals on auctions (scrap.tf, formerly bazaar), you can still get lucky w/ deals on trade servers (Firepowered, formerly WantedgovIT or Vatican), and even in a market overcentralized by bots (which, IMO, are more of a help than a burden), you can still explore niches like spells, low crafts or collector's and thrive in your own way. Only big difference that might drive people away right now is how hard it is to start: the early-game of trading is comparable to starting off in Terraria. It's a struggle, and you'll make infinitesimal progress for god knows how long until you have a decent capita. If you're starting off from scratch, i'd highly recommend starting off with buying a couple hundred keys, no less than 200. Besides, the fact it's far less active nowadays DOES have it's silver linings; as you can trade passively on the side while you focus on other hobbies, work or studies, while you harvest incoming trade offers all the while your personal trading bot fructified your investments. It's different, it might throw some old time traders away, but the one constant is that it STILL feels right as good to receive a trade offer offering your full buyout in pure for something you're selling. Virtual hat dopamine is an unrivaled motivator

no. if you want to have fun buy hats you like and actually play the game. if you wanna make money get a job :0000000 1 hour of work = 10000 hours of sitting on a trade server advertising hats nobody wants to buy

I really do enjoy trading and spend a decent amount of time on it. The community is so full of pessimism but I think that if you truly work at it and enjoy it, you can make great progress. Now sure, it’s harder to make it into high tier trading without supplementing your trades with some cash, but even a small amount can go a long way. Start trading for the enjoyment of it, and keep going for the profits. 

Something that doesn't exist can't be fun

depends on what your goals are tbh for me? no. most of the cool stuff that I'd want is locked away forever. either that or it's aped so hard that I refuse to buy it, purely out of spite. profit trading can be fun sometimes, but if I were to do it consistently, I'd view it as a chore.