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Staff mules would have paid for it.

There was never any danger of it closing, as it's one of the more beloved shops/characters.
Had it been something like Sam's Body and Parts or Mecha Neko, on the other hand, then that would be interesting. However using shops that fewer people care about won't sell as many GGs, so that will never happen. I'm anxious to see which gold shop is next.
Really, though, this kickstarter seems to have been a sneaky way to jack up the prices at HRW, so I'm sure they'll have to go around and do it to every gold shop eventually.

Gaia pretty much holds the users in contempt, as they've demonstrated by ignoring practically all feedback for over a year now. They view us as lab rats to be manipulated out of our money via various tricks, scams and enticements.

They aren't going to put any real power in the users' hands, and they will always get the result they want from those gold sinks. They aren't above being dishonest, using "test gold," using staff mules, playing with the counter, or via whatever other underhanded means they can use to achieve what they want to have happen. They probably laugh at the users who still believe they are playing a legitimate game.

They aren't going to give lab rats the power to influence anything on this site that they don't already want done. Releasing those old accounts, for instance -- they didn't do that out of the goodness of their hearts because they actually listened to people. They did it because they were so seriously backlogged on their tickets, they figured they could cancel out a whole bunch of them that way and save themselves some time and money. And if the users were happy about it, that was just a side benefit. Perhaps the idiots would buy some Gaia cash to show their gratitude.

These are my opinions, but this is what I truly believe, based on the way they've treated us and their actions over the past year or so since the new management took over.