Enough is enoughFollow

For the past several weeks silk prices (in windurst at least)
have become extremly volital, at one point selling for only 7500 instead of 10,000. this dosnt seem like a big deal, and for most it isnt. But for the lower lvls and others who ether have not found another way to make gil or simply cant because of their level, this is a major blow.
silk has been a major part of the windurstian economy since i started, but only recently has the price began to waver so drasticly. at one point only a few days ago there were over 140 stacks of silk for auction, at first i had no idea what had caused the surge in the amount of silk and to be honest i still dont know for sure, i had thought maybe SE had increased the item drop rate of silk thread for some strange reason in one of the recent updates. But that just didnt make sence as there dosnt seem to be any need to do this. Earlier tonight i was talking to a friend of mine who has been leveling ranger, this drop in silk prices has caused him to stop his leveling because hes simply to broke to afford arrows since silk was his main (possibly only) method of making gil. During the course of our conversation i mentioned my own bafflment as to what was going on. Then, through /tell he told me a friend of his had sent him the link for a web site which sold gil. I asked if he was going to buy some and he said he might. I chuckled and admited that iv thought of doing this as well but said that there was only one problem with this idea. he asked me what it was and i responded that by buying gil from a web site, he was effectivly paying gil farmers. He asked me to explain as he is still relativly new and wasnt familior with the term, i told him what i knew of the jerrys and the redapples and the like and what it was they were payed to do. at that point he responed rather quickly "THOSE GUYS!?" and said he had had run ins with the jerrys that, like most, did not go to well.
Then he said, almost as an after thought, that he had seen apples in west and east sarutabaruta, and that they had been busily farming away at most everything worth while.
It was at this point, that it first occured to me, could the recent failure of silk prices be related to these gil farmers?
Why i hadnt thought of it sooner im not sure, as it certainly seems more likely then SE tinkering with the drop rate of such an item.
Do i have any hard evidence that the gil farmers are responsible? no. My stance on this is merely one of curiosity.
However, I do strongly believe that there is indeed a problem and that this might well be a blatent example of the impact upon both the economy, and the gaming experiance of FFxi that such people can have.
I have started this thread not to become another place for the rantings (however legitamit they might be) of anti-gilfarmer fanatics (possibly to strongly worded, i know). but rather as a means of communicating an ever growing problem to those who wish to read it. At present, Square-Enix does not consider gil farming a 'major' problem. I agree with this, but i also believe that this may easily escalate to that level and hope that growing publication of this will lead S-E to take action.

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Maybe the fact that new EU players are joining have something to do with it.

it may even have something to do with the release of CoP, and the new lvl 30 gear...have you looked at the price of cotton latly, mainly the cloth...its practially doubled. Maybe the people who were buying silk got caught up in this new fad...therfore causing silk to not sell like it used to. Less demand = lower price, ecpesially as competitive as selling silk is.

meh, yea i pretty much thought this was the case, didnt realy dawn on me till way after i posted though. still it sux as there realy is no other way to make good gil at lower lvls, and i imagine the gil farmers dont help.
anywho, thx for the thoughts.