TOPIC: Anti-Competitive Practices in ZARP?

This is not a thread that you can use to start calling other players out. It's just a debate about whether you think this exists in ZARP or not. Please don't turn this into a thing where you allow saltiness over scams or overpricing to allow you to start cussing out another player on this thread.

Tl;dr No arguments, no saltiness. I get the feeling this might be locked before any real discussion can happen if things slide out of hand, so try and keep it neutral.

So, I was randomly browsing and found an old case about Microsoft being involved in anti-competitive practices. If you're not sure what these are, they're basically things that're used to prevent or just reduce competition in a free market.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices

Now, obviously there would be a few things that might not be so applicable in ZARP's economy when it comes to this. But since the rise of more shop owners and with over 200 items in circulation in the economy, I'd like to ask you guys if you think you've ever seen anti-competitive practices in ZARP. This can include stuff like (copied and pasted from the Wikipedia page):

Dumping, where a company sells a product in a competitive market at a loss. Though the company loses money for each sale, the company hopes to force other competitors out of the market, after which the company would be free to raise prices for a greater profit.
Exclusive dealing, where a retailer or wholesaler is obliged by contract to only purchase from the contracted supplier.
Price fixing, where companies collude to set prices, effectively dismantling the free market.
Refusal to deal, e.g., two companies agree not to use a certain vendor
Dividing territories, an agreement by two companies to stay out of each other's way and reduce competition in the agreed-upon territories.
Limit pricing, where the price is set by a monopolist at a level intended to discourage entry into a market.
Tying, where products that aren't naturally related must be purchased together.
Resale price maintenance, where resellers are not allowed to set prices independently.
Religious / minority group doctrine, where businesses must apply tribute to a significant (normally religious) part of the community in order to engage in trade with that community. (e.g., A business that does not comply will be 50% worse off than the competitor if they do not comply with the tribute demanded by just 20% of the community)

You can see which ones might not be applicable, but just for argument's sake, let's keep them here.

Also, please keep the top note in mind. No arguments, no saltiness.

I heard trying to collect all the items within the server is competitionless

A game's economy can never be as complex as the real world economy. When corners are cut for the sake of simplicity but also because we're playing Garry's Mod, not life simulator 2019, you're bound to run into these sort of areas that are considered anti-competitive.

For example, there's so much 'free trade' in ZARP that you almost always end up with people dealing exclusively. But other factors play a role in other areas such as refusing to deal; i.e. why the fuck should I sell to that noob that RDM'd me earlier in the week? What a dick!

There isn't a layer of commercial professionalism, at the end of the day for most zarpians, it's who's paying the most money gets the item.

r/iamverysmart

Upon checking the logs we've discovered Jack Bushross using anti-competitive practices on the server. He was using a multi-alt setup with 7700k's and 1080Ti's based of a Linus Tech Tips video in order to claim multiple Premium Card Packs.

Chuteuk wrote:
was it in -textmode to avoid high usage allowing him to use even more alts?

Nafe wrote:
Yes, we anti-cheated him and found this:

Chuteuk wrote:
That video was so fucking weird

Mr Red X wrote:
He got to keep them like the black friday update.

Zarp is a very simple and it's economy will never involve pretty much any of these arguments you've listed. I'd say it's a pretty nice thing as in the real world we will never be able to witness a perfectly fair economy as available on Zarp. I guess "Limit pricing" happens with a few really rare items that ends up giving the seller control but that's pretty much it.

.uzi wrote: Not completely true, it obviously doesn't apply to Garry's Mod but there are games out there that are really close to IRL, like EVE, Entropia and on special occasions Path of Exile.

Subtly and it's only price fixing.