Any currency with more money entering the system than leaving it is going to be inflationary, though. Dollars could work in the exact same way as pucapoints if the government never removes dollars from the economy. Controlling inflation is a very important thing in macroeconomics. That isn't really communist in the slightest. Any centralized body (government, Pucatrade, etc) has the power to create more of its currency whenever it feels like it. It's just that governments usually have better sense (or at least regulations) than to print money directly for individuals, though there are a number of historical examples of governments using that technique as a means to pay off creditors. The end result is, obviously, inflation (or hyperinflation, as it sometimes went).
The telling thing, to me, is that the most common form of response to "Pucatrade is bad because of these economic arguments" is the personal anecdote. "It worked well for me." It's like back in Bitcoin's heyday, when people were warning that it was in an unsustainable bubble, and its advocates were hyping up the fact that it created value for them personally—they couldn't present an economic argument for why the system was viable, so they appealed to personal anecdotes instead, hoping to draw more people in through emotional arguments and sustain the system that way. Also, the fact that the actual market value of the pucapoint was in steady decline until, as I understand it, Pucatrade banned selling them directly should tell everyone here a fair amount about its future prospects.
I kinda went off track with the inflation but my main beef and reference to communism is that it's centralized around 1 group that manages trades between people and they are the only ones benefiting from it. What I hated was that I cannot set my own price for the cards. I have to abide by their "estimates". It's stupid imho.
Aside from economic concerns, I like that there's a single price based on a popular online price guide. If I wanted to set my own prices for cards and try to haggle and wheel and deal I could go to a con and spend an afternoon trading, but I find that process unappealing and draining. My in person trades usually involve both people checking TCGPlayer mid and coming to some rough agreement anyway. I'm not saying that a site where you could set your own prices is necessarily a bad thing, but it's not something I care about, and what you see as a drawback to Puca I see as a welcome design feature.
The idea that there's some sinister underbelly to it honestly makes no sense to me. I have no problem with Eric Freytag profiting off of a good idea to facilitate long distance trades. I'm not even sure how you could claim that the people who run the site are the only ones benefiting. The entire point is that people are able to get cards that the otherwise couldn't have without spending money beyond postage. That's not a benefit? I can understand people not being interested or not feeling like Puca is for them, but to put forth the idea that there's no benefit to anyone is just illogical.
Ultimately nobody in this thread is going to convince someone on the other side, so whatever.
The guy that posted this thread has 7 posts and 3 of them are the OP that was copy/pasted elsewhere; the rest also anti-Pucatrade junk. Pretty sure there was no discussion intended here - just attempts to defame Pucatrade. Pucatrade has it's issues, but like many things, a lot of those issues are created by the user for themselves. It's also a given that usually no one goes to a website's forum for the sole purpose of throwing a tantrum about their experience with a 3rd party entity in every post, unless there's some personal accountability to be had. The truth is, all these asinine comparisons to some communist economy and inflation and whatnot obviously don't matter to a good sum of people using it and aren't seen as an issue because a lot of people use it.
I have an account, myself, and though I haven't done much on there yet, it felt pretty good to put some obscure $0.10 rares up and have some people claim my free 500 points and just send me cards. I'd almost rather buy points and hit people's Haves list than trade because of shipping costs, but if I were intending to ship out I'd just wait until I could send in bulk. It'd still be better than the 40-60% TCGPlayer value that most card shops give in store credit for trade in. It's also still better to use set prices than this trend I keep seeing where people expect you to trade at their cards at TCGPlayer Mid vs. yours at TCGPlayer Low to force people to trade up for them. The truth is, when it comes to trading Magic, there have been a lot of shady and scummy fads and practices being embraced in the last few years, and I will give Pucatrade that having a flat price cuts that ***** out of it except the very rare occasion. No system is perfect. None.
Frankly, I've come to really dislike trading with people in person. I hate the wavering back and forth on trade deals; I hate the guys sitting around with friends and their commentary that makes the trade infinitely longer; I hate pulling out cards from binders and having to replace them; I hate how many people poorly attempt to try to shark each other now at every turn; but most of all I hate dealing with people who can't just accept a $1-2 difference when they want to pull nothing out but competitive staples and they have ***** all worth of cards and then decide to neg the trade over the difference. Trading has become a giant hassle and it's gotten to the point that I'd rather take a huge chunk of loss trading in for store credit than get huge low balls in trade offers and waste my time. Puca does negate most of the negatives flaring up in trading in recent years.
I've been using Pucatrade for about 1.5 years. I traded away a lot of junk and even some $10 rares (but hard to trade away in real life) and in return I got a lot of modern playables like cryptic commands and blood moons. Here's what I'll say about the site:
1.) Yes you can trade away your jank but it's a bit harder than the site makes it sounds. Your postage is $0.50 so in order to get some value your trades must be over $0.50. We are not even including envelope and top loader if you use one. That means you have to send over 50 cents of jank to a single person.
2.) If you are waiting for some higher priced things (I had a blackcleave cliffs on my want list for 6 mo and still no one sent to me), you can be waiting for a LONG time. You can look at how infrequent it gets traded. Then look at how many other people want the same card.
3.) You and everyone knows the name of the game: send in your junk, get treasures in return. If everyone has the same mentality you'll just have a bunch of people waiting for the same high end stuff while no takers on the lower end stuff. The system will collapse in the end.
4.) If you are looking for low end stuff to fill your EDH deck, I think its fine. Occasionally you might get a high end card you might be in for a long wait. However even in real life, trading for expensive cards can be difficult.
1.) Yes you can trade away your jank but it's a bit harder than the site makes it sounds. Your postage is $0.50 so in order to get some value your trades must be over $0.50. We are not even including envelope and top loader if you use one. That means you have to send over 50 cents of jank to a single person.
2.) If you are waiting for some higher priced things (I had a blackcleave cliffs on my want list for 6 mo and still no one sent to me), you can be waiting for a LONG time. You can look at how infrequent it gets traded. Then look at how many other people want the same card.
I think this is an important dichotomy to highlight. Nearly every time someone praises or tries to market Pucatrade, the gist of things almost invariably includes "you can trade up to high-end staples." The success stories that are meant to motivate new people to join overwhelmingly describe those sorts of outcomes. So the service attracts way more people who want higher-value cards than people who want to trade them away.
Every time someone says, "I turned this jank into dual lands, and you should join Pucatrade because you can do that too," they're making it harder for everyone to accomplish that goal. I'm not as up on the marketing side of Pucatrade as those with more experience with the service, but does Pucatrade ever try to market itself as a higher-value alternative for getting rid of your staples? The viral marketing focuses on the "want" side of the equation, but I've never seen anything even come close to it that focuses on the "have" side of the equation. Maybe it's simple ignorance, but it does seem strange that you rarely if ever hear stories like, "These expensive staples kept getting insultingly lowballed by my LGS and local traders, but I was able to get full value for them on Pucatrade, so it's an awesome service." If anything, axing selling points for real money drives that side away. Any value they gain in pucapoints has to be cashed out as cards made through in-system transactions. They can't simply grab a bunch of points for their staples, then sell those points. It adds an extra layer of inconvenience that drives down the available supply of endpoint staples.
The system just doesn't work in the long run, and the lopsided focus on trading up (since that's what sells hopes and dreams to the largest number of prospective new members) only exacerbates the problem.
Any value they gain in pucapoints has to be cashed out as cards made through in-system transactions. They can't simply grab a bunch of points for their staples, then sell those points. It adds an extra layer of inconvenience that drives down the available supply of endpoint staples.
Case in point(s), selling points for cash has recently been added to the list of banworthy offenses, which should actually obscure (but definitely not fix) the rate of inflation. They want those points to keep moving around & make it tougher to actually stop using their service.
I think a good first step toward fixing their economy is to replace (for new membership renewals or on an opt-in basis) the ban with a member-to-member point sale mechanism where Puca processes the payment and transfer of points in one transaction & charges the seller a 5% fee in points. That could start removing some of the million or so Zimbabwe Dollars Pucapoints that are in the system & shouldn't be.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hey all... I'm retired, not dead. Check out what I'm doing these days (and beg me to come back if you want):
Everyone talks about wanting to trade up, but it's been great for me to trade down! I was away from the game for more than 15 years and I have been able to trade a handful of cards for hundreds to make decks. I'm have a ton of fun playing with entire decks than sitting on my couch staring at a few cards in my binder.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm fairly confident I will think of something to say. Active Player: 1994-1999, 2016-
Everyone talks about wanting to trade up, but it's been great for me to trade down! I was away from the game for more than 15 years and I have been able to trade a handful of cards for hundreds to make decks. I'm have a ton of fun playing with entire decks than sitting on my couch staring at a few cards in my binder.
But for every one of you, there are a hundred people who want to uptrade.
Pucatrade is like a dating site. The females are the ones trying to trade down/offering the staples and the males are the ones trying to uptrade/offering jank. And just like dating sites, the ratio is completely skewed towards the 'males', making it incredibly hard for them to be successful ;-)
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
The idea that there's some sinister underbelly to it honestly makes no sense to me. I have no problem with Eric Freytag profiting off of a good idea to facilitate long distance trades. I'm not even sure how you could claim that the people who run the site are the only ones benefiting. The entire point is that people are able to get cards that the otherwise couldn't have without spending money beyond postage. That's not a benefit? I can understand people not being interested or not feeling like Puca is for them, but to put forth the idea that there's no benefit to anyone is just illogical.
Ultimately nobody in this thread is going to convince someone on the other side, so whatever.
I have an account, myself, and though I haven't done much on there yet, it felt pretty good to put some obscure $0.10 rares up and have some people claim my free 500 points and just send me cards. I'd almost rather buy points and hit people's Haves list than trade because of shipping costs, but if I were intending to ship out I'd just wait until I could send in bulk. It'd still be better than the 40-60% TCGPlayer value that most card shops give in store credit for trade in. It's also still better to use set prices than this trend I keep seeing where people expect you to trade at their cards at TCGPlayer Mid vs. yours at TCGPlayer Low to force people to trade up for them. The truth is, when it comes to trading Magic, there have been a lot of shady and scummy fads and practices being embraced in the last few years, and I will give Pucatrade that having a flat price cuts that ***** out of it except the very rare occasion. No system is perfect. None.
Frankly, I've come to really dislike trading with people in person. I hate the wavering back and forth on trade deals; I hate the guys sitting around with friends and their commentary that makes the trade infinitely longer; I hate pulling out cards from binders and having to replace them; I hate how many people poorly attempt to try to shark each other now at every turn; but most of all I hate dealing with people who can't just accept a $1-2 difference when they want to pull nothing out but competitive staples and they have ***** all worth of cards and then decide to neg the trade over the difference. Trading has become a giant hassle and it's gotten to the point that I'd rather take a huge chunk of loss trading in for store credit than get huge low balls in trade offers and waste my time. Puca does negate most of the negatives flaring up in trading in recent years.
(Also known as Xenphire)
1.) Yes you can trade away your jank but it's a bit harder than the site makes it sounds. Your postage is $0.50 so in order to get some value your trades must be over $0.50. We are not even including envelope and top loader if you use one. That means you have to send over 50 cents of jank to a single person.
2.) If you are waiting for some higher priced things (I had a blackcleave cliffs on my want list for 6 mo and still no one sent to me), you can be waiting for a LONG time. You can look at how infrequent it gets traded. Then look at how many other people want the same card.
3.) You and everyone knows the name of the game: send in your junk, get treasures in return. If everyone has the same mentality you'll just have a bunch of people waiting for the same high end stuff while no takers on the lower end stuff. The system will collapse in the end.
4.) If you are looking for low end stuff to fill your EDH deck, I think its fine. Occasionally you might get a high end card you might be in for a long wait. However even in real life, trading for expensive cards can be difficult.
I think this is an important dichotomy to highlight. Nearly every time someone praises or tries to market Pucatrade, the gist of things almost invariably includes "you can trade up to high-end staples." The success stories that are meant to motivate new people to join overwhelmingly describe those sorts of outcomes. So the service attracts way more people who want higher-value cards than people who want to trade them away.
Every time someone says, "I turned this jank into dual lands, and you should join Pucatrade because you can do that too," they're making it harder for everyone to accomplish that goal. I'm not as up on the marketing side of Pucatrade as those with more experience with the service, but does Pucatrade ever try to market itself as a higher-value alternative for getting rid of your staples? The viral marketing focuses on the "want" side of the equation, but I've never seen anything even come close to it that focuses on the "have" side of the equation. Maybe it's simple ignorance, but it does seem strange that you rarely if ever hear stories like, "These expensive staples kept getting insultingly lowballed by my LGS and local traders, but I was able to get full value for them on Pucatrade, so it's an awesome service." If anything, axing selling points for real money drives that side away. Any value they gain in pucapoints has to be cashed out as cards made through in-system transactions. They can't simply grab a bunch of points for their staples, then sell those points. It adds an extra layer of inconvenience that drives down the available supply of endpoint staples.
The system just doesn't work in the long run, and the lopsided focus on trading up (since that's what sells hopes and dreams to the largest number of prospective new members) only exacerbates the problem.
Case in point(s), selling points for cash has recently been added to the list of banworthy offenses, which should actually obscure (but definitely not fix) the rate of inflation. They want those points to keep moving around & make it tougher to actually stop using their service.
I think a good first step toward fixing their economy is to replace (for new membership renewals or on an opt-in basis) the ban with a member-to-member point sale mechanism where Puca processes the payment and transfer of points in one transaction & charges the seller a 5% fee in points. That could start removing some of the million or so
Zimbabwe DollarsPucapoints that are in the system & shouldn't be.https://twitch.tv/annorax10 (classic retro speedruns & occasional MTGO/MTGA screwaround streams)
https://twitch.tv/SwiftorCasino (yes, my team and I run live dealer games for the baldman using his channel points as chips)
Active Player: 1994-1999, 2016-
Sign & Share Petition To Fix MTG: Arena's Economy: https://goo.gl/z8fop8
Hahahahaha that was great.
Active Player: 1994-1999, 2016-
Sign & Share Petition To Fix MTG: Arena's Economy: https://goo.gl/z8fop8