I actually made a
topic on this in Site Feedback yesterday. A bunch of people voted on it (mostly down), but nobody said a word in response to it.
To paraphrase:
I'm pretty sure that supply on a whole hasn't plummeted and demand on a whole also hasn't skyrocketed (if I'm wrong to the tune of something like thousands more users can suddenly afford the most expensive item on the MP), please correct me.
That said:
The prices have been pushed artificially high (think real life diamonds) because people know that with all the extra Gold going around, people will have more to spend and so they increase prices. Items are also hoarded away for later taking them out of circulation and affecting visible supply.
People, with more Gold to spend, are able to and do buy into the artificially inflated prices.
Everything feeds into the other.
Unlike in the real world where earning less per transaction directly affects something like how much money you might have for groceries and rent (like if you're a small business owner and rely entirely on your business for your income), on Gaia, there is no comparison because there is nothing at stake - only pure profit for virtual pixels and virtual currency and a notion of item rarity and related desirability.
That said, profit is one thing; absurd amounts of profit is, in my unpopular opinion, greed.
Prices inflate not just because of how much Gold is in circulation but also the desires of people to earn as much profit as they can.
If people will pay, then why not charge them as much as possible?
Funny that people complain about this with Gaia the company trying to milk their userbase for as much Cash as possible when there are plenty of Vendors who would do and are doing the same... but with Gold instead.
They don't have to hyperinflate the prices, but they do anyways.
And people don't have to buy into these hyperinflated prices, but they do anyways, too, because they now have more Gold and can afford the hyperinflated prices.
Gaia doesn't set the prices on anything being resold into the MP unless it's through Flynn's Plunder; the userbase ultimately sets it.
Completely blaming Gaia is, to me, illogical; it's like blaming casinos for the subsequent bankruptcy of the players who frequent it.
Nobody made anyone walk into the casino and gamble their life away.
In the same way, nobody made anybody take advantage of the surplus of Gold by either charging astronomically high prices or buying into these said astronomically high prices.
People like earning profit and people like keeping up with the trends and getting the items that they want.
There's more to it involving the reselling of specific items like Flynn's Booty and Flynn's Chest and the reselling of Cash items in general, but those are my thoughts for now.