Well, sometimes they are, heh.

However, when there is not a voice on the "pro" side of the equation that is part of the real game, be it serious PvP alliances or heavy-duty industrialists, it's pretty clear that there's a problem.
The casual players often don't understand what's going on, but the serious ones really do. They often understand the implications better than CCP - note the tech moon changes, etc. The serious players are the ones that are canceling their subscriptions.

Okay, you, as an ice miner that grinds for isk, are benefiting from one side of the trade.
However, the isk that you spent to buy the PLEX doesn't vanish. It goes into another player's wallet. That player now spends it on ships and items built by the main driving force of Eve, the industrialists.

When buying items directly for Aurum, the industrialists are removed from the equation. They then quit the game - (margins are already mighty tight for production) and CCP is forced to provide more ships directly for cash. At a certain point, you *are* forced to use the microtransactions, because the industrialists have left.
Admittedly, as a player funding your playtime by ice mining, you'll likely quit then, thus further proving my point.

Okay, so you really seem to not understand where things come from in Eve.

Basic lesson:
Just like the food you eat doesn't magically appear in the grocery store, items in Eve are made by players, commonly referred to as "industrialists".
The ship that you fly was built by another player, using minerals mined from asteroids or by reprocessing drops, and salvage gathered by yet another player, be it a new player salvaging where they can find ships or a mission runner salvaging in bulk. Depending on the tech level of the ship, there were also datacores from research agents, likely gained by yet another player who ground standings with a corporation to get access to those research agents, plus other salvage gained by other player corporations that operate in wormholes that they explored to find.
The people flying and blowing up ships are only the tip of the wedge. Logistics wins wars, in RL and in Eve.

Well, PLEX was put in to legitimize the existing trade in GTC, and make the representation of game time an in-game item that was owned by CCP.

If you mean RMT, sure, there's some, and they fight it when possible. There's some RMT in every MMO.

If you mean PLEX, you've completely missed the point.

Not about the monocle, it's just a silly overpriced bit of pixels. You know as well as I that the primary anger is about the leaked plans.

Also, Eve's a lot more than a space sim - it's more of a humanity sim.

Yes, it looks like the VCs are running the place. The new CFO, Joseph Gallo, is a 14-year veteran and former managing director from Citicorp who left about the time of the global financial collapse. His LinkedIn profile claims that he's responsible for the strategic direction of the company.

Confirming that you aren't able to grasp how the Eve economy works.

Discuss the difference between a cash->PLEX->isk->items transaction and a cash->PLEX->Aurum->items transaction, with particular emphasis on the player economy. Extra credit: What happens if the system ends up being like the first deployment of the Ishukone Scorpion (originally planned to require a player-built Scorpion in trade, but changed to just ship-for-Aurum after it was "too hard" to implement)

Also, discuss the impact of paying for faction standings on T2 production. Show your work.

Eh, it's a little different this time. The angry people aren't the usual forum warriors, they're people like Ombey that have been major but quiet parts of the game.

How PLEX works with the economy has also been explained repeatedly.
I can do so again if you really don't understand, and are not being intentionally obtuse to try to make your point.

Assuming that you really do know about how PLEX work, now contrast that with a system where items are sold for Aurum with no interaction with the player-run economy.

Well, there have been a couple of trolls saying so, but they're pretty obvious trolls. Even then, 5 people can't sustain a business model.

They're being sneaky about it because of the expectation of this very reaction.

Cash->PLEX->isk->items feeds the economy twice.

Cash->PLEX->AUR->items feeds nothing but CCP.

That's Kristoffer
Touborg saying that - CCP Soundwave. His title is Lead Designer. Hard to call the lead designer of the game a "low-end dev", at least with a straight face.