Prices are dropping because of a lot of reasons. The average botter is an ignorant 10-15 year old who doesn't understand economics. Don't listen to them. (Just go to rsbots.net forums and look in the Auto Runecraft Pro section. Chances are, there are a good 20 people who INSIST that they can drive natures back to 200+ if they just hoard another 100k nats.)
Here are the main reasons that prices are dropping:
1. Chaotic weapons are sucking a
lot of cash out of the game. Less cash means less demand for items, and prices drop.
2. School is back up. Less players means less demand. Prices will drop.
3. Bots are becoming increasingly popular and increasingly sophisticated. Also, most botters tend to gain resources (e.g. mining, wcing, Sorc Garden, beastfaming) rather than expending resources (e.g. Herblore, Smithing, Construction), so the increase in supply with a no relative increase in demand drives prices down.
4. Many goldfarming methods have dropped up to 50%. This means the average player is "poorer" and doesn't want to pay as much per item. This will drive prices down because they won't buy an item until it is at a lower price.
5. We came out of a pretty big bubble. The bubble was popping towards the begining of the summer (remember inflated herb, gem, rune prices?), but the bonus weekend kind of stopped the economy where it was at. I think that we're finally sinking down as low as we need to in order to recuperate from those very inflated prices.
Anyway, there's my 2 or so minutes' worth of time. I got the same amount of +1 posts at nate did, but it took me about 20 times as long. Oh well.
