What Will the TF2 Community do About The Economy Gradually Getting Worse?

[Casimir]

With The Rising Prices Of Keys And The Economy Falling Out Of Control, What Is The Community Going To Do About This??? 
I Would Like To Hear Ideas That Are Proposed.
A Great Ted X Video Was Made On The Economy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6Qn56QWI&t=186s

[soz]

ban automatic price fixing on unusuals

[Smartieshehe]

get good at trading and you wont worry about such meaningless shit

[Perhaps-eron]

ban unusuals

[Snailiad]

like he said in the video, a metal sink has to be created in order to stop inflation

 

this can be done in either part by valve, or a community effort

 

1. valve isn't committed to TF2

 

2. the community would need to delete thousands of refined metal in order to deflate keys

[DRIFTA]

Im Going To McDonalds Do You Guys Want Anything ?

[Lʌyer]

4 minutes ago, DRIFTA said:

Im Going To McDonalds Do You Guys Want Anything ?

Mann Co. Supply Crate Key for 3 ref

[Xaeriel]

23 minutes ago, DRIFTA said:

Im Going To McDonalds Do You Guys Want Anything ?

A miracle cure to not have her die in a few months to years

[creepio]

1 hour ago, Snailiad said:

like he said in the video, a metal sink has to be created in order to stop inflation

 

this can be done in either part by valve, or a community effort

 

1. valve isn't committed to TF2

 

2. the community would need to delete thousands of refined metal in order to deflate keys

Thousands of ref? Millions. 

[Cool Fez]

It's not getting worse you're just bad at trading. In fact its better than it has ever been.

[Bob the Unsymmetrical]

We may not recover from the real world's economic downturn, however, tf2's economy has improved since the pandemic has given tf2 new blood and therefore new traders in the economy. Even though 1 key is not what it used to be, more traders =  more circulation of items and money and keys or whatever,

[Keks]

breathe when and ONLY when a new trader claims that the economy is going to shit because the key prices are going ape-shit crazy

[hyro]

Tbf I don't think we will hardly notice when keys will get up to 100 ref each. We'll just go with it as we do now

[MFB Goobie]

"Economy bad!!!" Even though it hasn't changed that much. Only thing worth mentioning is the crate depression and the shift from 1st gen to halloweens/miscs. Thousands and thousands of items still get traded/bought everyday. The tf2 economy has always shifted, it has never 'fallen out of control'. Please don't bring up the key price argument, refined is worth 4 cents, what did you expect.

[Norah]

Economy isn't getting worse, it's changing and adapting to getting smaller. Keys are worth more than they have been for a long time, the fact that them sitting at around 1.92USD on MP is considered "low" is an infinitely better state than they've been in for years.

 

Yeah, Refined is getting lower, but what does that really matter. Prices haven't actually increased, they've just changed relative to the lowering value of refined. 90 cents worth of Refined still buys you a ToD ticket, be it if Refined is worth 4 cents or 50 cents, you just have to click some more in the trade window now than you used to.

[pooopooo]

everyone just delete every refind in ur inventory and the prices will go up

[RafasDR]

  The economy has improved a lot with this quarantine, with a lot more money and more people going around every day: a feat that we haven't seen in a few months (or years). With that, there is certainly a greater incentive to buy some tf2 items now.

However, we must think:

For how long will this be sustained?

With the API down for a few weeks now, how much does Valve care about tf2 trading and what is the reason for not fixing it? and how many times will this happen?

And when the big depression really comes (money is running out and the government will not help us anymore $$), how many traders will continue to invest their money in tf2?

We may be at the peak, but the economy is certainly not bad at this moment.

[HaloGAMER0329]

Im pretty sure well reach a point where ref inflation will slow to a crawl, all these years its just been inflating because the drop rate was so high to start, but the drop rate has never increased, so in theory we should at some point hit the healthy 2-3% level, if you notice the trend has actually been that inflation has been slowing down all these years.

[SubZeroDestruction]

The economy is fine in terms of not just falling apart so far without Valve/TF Team intervening with the ref issue, and even more so after the CD, since it helped spread some keys and metal around to newer users/make unusual trading even more viable to get into at the low-end.

However, I argue, that the bots on Classifieds ought to either be removed, or heavily restricted/limited in what they're allowed to do. They're already easy to "manipulate" if you price stuff below their sell orders in most cases, causing them to start dropping/undercutting each other (I've caused this to happen many times), and whether that's because their prices are over-inflated due to themselves automatically overcutting (an issue in itself), or because there's an issue that causes them to all start dropping when a lower price exists, I wouldn't know.
But while it does sound like a benefit for others (which it is/can be) then it just punishes the person trying to sell (Especially worse for new traders) since then they have to either just flip to the buy bots, or risk bots just going way to low to where they can't profit off of what they got.
I don't mind bot-sites, (scrap, stn, sfu, etc.) but I feel BP should have stayed user to user.

Then again, I'd prefer going back to 2014-2016~ trading, so I'm probably just crazy.

[Vrakos Anthrakir]

none of this talk is new..

[duskfen]

This may be a huge surprise, but did you know you can trade in TF2 without Refined metal? Isn't that insane?! Absolutely pog insane epic gamer moment omg!!!

[HaloGAMER0329]

3 hours ago, SubZeroDestruction said:

The economy is fine in terms of not just falling apart so far without Valve/TF Team intervening with the ref issue, and even more so after the CD, since it helped spread some keys and metal around to newer users/make unusual trading even more viable to get into at the low-end.

However, I argue, that the bots on Classifieds ought to either be removed, or heavily restricted/limited in what they're allowed to do. They're already easy to "manipulate" if you price stuff below their sell orders in most cases, causing them to start dropping/undercutting each other (I've caused this to happen many times), and whether that's because their prices are over-inflated due to themselves automatically overcutting (an issue in itself), or because there's an issue that causes them to all start dropping when a lower price exists, I wouldn't know.
But while it does sound like a benefit for others (which it is/can be) then it just punishes the person trying to sell (Especially worse for new traders) since then they have to either just flip to the buy bots, or risk bots just going way to low to where they can't profit off of what they got.
I don't mind bot-sites, (scrap, stn, sfu, etc.) but I feel BP should have stayed user to user.

Then again, I'd prefer going back to 2014-2016~ trading, so I'm probably just crazy.

nothing stopping a user from auto accepting trades that match their buyout. Bots create liquidity, there is a human behind every bot. Bots dont magically generate items, someone somewhere had to sell to them, if the bot sells their items for a loss well pretty soon that bot wont be buying and selling anything. If prices are too high its because nobody wants to sell, if prices are too low its because nobody wants to buy. Also hasnt tf2 automatic been free for a year or 2 now? so the argument about bots having an entry barrier is moot.

[SubZeroDestruction]

18 minutes ago, HaloGAMER0329 said:

nothing stopping a user from auto accepting trades that match their buyout. Bots create liquidity, there is a human behind every bot. Bots dont magically generate items, someone somewhere had to sell to them, if the bot sells their items for a loss well pretty soon that bot wont be buying and selling anything. If prices are too high its because nobody wants to sell, if prices are too low its because nobody wants to buy. Also hasnt tf2 automatic been free for a year or 2 now? so the argument about bots having an entry barrier is moot.

I have nothing against users accepting offers that match their b/o? I (seemingly) have an issue with the undercutting/overcutting scripts, and or in the case of new users, the fact that they're generally unable to obtain items that will give them a decent profit margin that's more than a scrap in most cases, as unless they also find a new user/someone not using BP.tf, they'll almost always be unable to buy items for below bot-buy orders, or for below bot-sellers.
Not sure where I brought up an entry barrier in terms of getting a bot, but I'd prefer people not being "forced" in a sense, to have to get a bot to even participate/have a chance at trading.

[Flamadin]

Keys are $2.49, same as always.

 

I am making absurd bank on S.C.M., so you can buy and sell there.

[Bewitched]

It's really working fine for me. Is it only me or someone else too?