Have Trading Bots helped or hurt the trading economy?

[Momo Ria]

Just wondering what other people think about the topic!

I believe that for low tier trading it has on some items made it very hard to trade as items only have a one scrap difference between Buy and Sell Orders which certainly makes it impossible to make profit on those items, but has certainly helped with making pricing items easier in a way aswell as makes mistakes a lot more comforting knowing a bot will always buy your item even if you do loose money

[johnnyolboy]

I personally think bots have done more bad. Trading has become much more tedious since they have came, and have made profit margins much smaller for most non limited unusuals. But id say the biggest bad of all is price inflation. Things that used to go for 15 keys sometimes nowadays go for 18 at buy orders, simply because bots were made to mindlessly overcut. If anything, all unusuals by now shouldve dropped due to the update drought, but buy orders have stopped that, making unusuals even more unobtainable to players who arent dishing out huge sums of cash for a funny hat.

[Flamadin]

Helped, without question.

 

The bots outbidding themselves means the market is more liquid and you can quickly get a higher price if you need to quicksell most items.

 

If somehow there were no bots, then people could not raise as much refined or keys quickly from sales, meaning overall the value of your stuff is less.

 

Yes, it is harder to profit from brainless trading, but still loads of opportunities out there if you know even one area of the trading scene well.

[ArtKitCat]

They’ve helped definitely (it’s already a pain to deal with a human traders, since you have to wait 8 or more hours for them to accept a trade offer.)

 

Though these bots like to artificially inflate the price of some cosmetics, such as the Gentle Manne's Service Medal. (Normally priced at 3.6 Keys, they are now listed for around 9-10 keys each.)

 

I think there should be a price limit on some items to prevent insane and overpriced listings.

[Slam]

Bots are the reason you don't have to wait 8 days for that one guy that has a Strange Scattergun with dominations to finally check Steam and accept your offer, that alone makes them good to me.

[Beaser]

Both, rather it changed the way the economy functions.

 

Ever since bot trading began, there has been controversy on whether it will help or ruin the economy. First off, bots help move items around. Thanks to their reliability as a 24/7 service, people use them to buy and sell items and currency. With specified buy/sell orders, it makes the market in control and stable unless inflation is involved. Now people have been speculating that bots cause the price spike of most unusuals, which is true, however even with an economy that has no bots, people can start inflating items however they please, if they have the power/money to do so. This is why there is supply and demand, since it is a control factor by both traders and bots. Bots are maintained by real people, and it is a lot of work programming it (unless you buy one) and setting up prices in order to trade.

[Mr365truck]

2 hours ago, Jobro said:

I personally think bots have done more bad. Trading has become much more tedious since they have came, and have made profit margins much smaller for most non limited unusuals. But id say the biggest bad of all is price inflation. Things that used to go for 15 keys sometimes nowadays go for 18 at buy orders, simply because bots were made to mindlessly overcut. If anything, all unusuals by now shouldve dropped due to the update drought, but buy orders have stopped that, making unusuals even more unobtainable to players who arent dishing out huge sums of cash for a funny hat.

Yes, but its also made pretty much every item have so much more liquidity, now making a mistake and trading for a shit hat is less punishing than if there were zero buy orders, except for the generic at 5 keys.

[rndmchrs]

13 hours ago, Momo Ria said:

Just wondering what other people think about the topic!

I believe that for low tier trading it has on some items made it very hard to trade as items only have a one scrap difference between Buy and Sell Orders which certainly makes it impossible to make profit on those items, but has certainly helped with making pricing items easier in a way aswell as makes mistakes a lot more comforting knowing a bot will always buy your item even if you do loose money

used to be nice but ever since unexperienced kids started using gladiator.tf, they just spam "hiGhEsT bUy OrdEr on the most cancerous unusuals to possibly exist then proceed to be stuck with them

 

95% of bot buy orders are too high lmao

[johnnyolboy]

Well if you ask me, more risk more reward is good. sure on 1 hand it can go badly, but thats just how actual trading is. The better traders make big profits, and the worse ones take notes and try to recover from those falls. Just an opiniom tho. but i can agree if buy orders were welly priced they would be great

[johnnyolboy]

forgot to quote lol

[johnnyolboy]

14 hours ago, Mr365truck said:

Yes, but its also made pretty much every item have so much more liquidity, now making a mistake and trading for a shit hat is less punishing than if there were zero buy orders, except for the generic at 5 keys.

Again.

[Norah]

Depends on what you're here. Automation makes it easier to make money, but the social aspect and "fun" of it has been sucked a bit, it's more like a job. Economically better, but a bit less appealing.