Comment Re:It's a question of what your time is worth. (Score 2, Informative) 208
$30 isn't much to you or I, but for a 13 year old in a rich world country who happens to have cheap/free access to a 'net connection and the game by some means, it might be a worthwhile investment of time otherwise spent doing nothing.
CCP doesn't invent the isk from nowhere and sell it, they only facilitate trade. So, in effect, they provide a method to get money INTO the system, but no way to get money OUT of the system. So the cheap labour doing the ISK farming shifts from being leeching, annoying, out-of-universe professionals, and moves to being young players who can earn enough to subsidise the regular play.
By making it harder to farm, the labour gets more scarce, the value of it goes up, and more young players can earn their way into the game.