Last time we removed mending, it dropped the value of diamonds considerably (with no increase in sales volume, as tracked by both vshop logs and checking physical chestshops since there was little direct player to player transactions happening) because people simply quit doing anything that would wear down their gear.
~ @CluelessKlutz
This is an interesting thought that removing mending would coincide with a fall in the diamond price, but economic concepts can actually support this.
When mending is in the game, demand for diamonds is non-existent for new players, but the demand is inelastic. Meaning; the price of diamonds does not affect demand in any noticeable way; this would be because diamonds with mending in the economy would only be a one time purchase. Since it’s only a one time purchase for most tools / armor (especially with no pvp), the price can be rather higher than before since players are willing to cough up a pretty penny for something they’ll never have to buy again.
Opposing this, when there is no mending in the economy, the demand curve would be elastic, meaning a change in price would greatly affect the demand of diamonds. Without mending, diamonds are no longer a one-time purchase, and demand for diamonds (indisputably) would go up as people need to restock their tools to do anything in the game. However, increased demand shows a growing economy, which makes investment in the economy desirable; in the scope of diamonds on Meepcraft, more people would mine and sell diamonds. This competition drives the price lower as others undercut others to hopefully sell more diamonds. The only way the falling price is stopped is by having a price floor set by the server or a player shop that will buy diamonds virtually infinitely (which Summrs’ shop did in towns classic).
Economic concepts clearly agree with the server, but I do not agree with your claim that demand for diamonds with and without mending is the same. By only being able to gather statistics on vshops and chest shops you exclude the bulk of diamond sales to other players (literally buying in bulk).
In a real world example, this oversight would be like tracking sales of steel directly to consumers while overlooking the fact that steel is a product primarily sold between corporations wishing to produce other items.
In the scope of diamonds on Meepcraft, this oversight is missing the bulk sales of diamonds that would never take place over Vshop, because of tax, or chest shops because of time. I can personally confirm that the demand for diamond was much much higher without mending in the economy because I bought diamonds in bulk many, many times from other players in order to have supplies for my god tool shop (which actually had demand since we didn’t have villager breeding in towns classic).
Now that I’ve established how economics responds to having mending in the economy, what will this suggestion do?
By removing mending while still having villager breeding in place, little will change. The vast majority of players and towns have access to villagers, making demand for god tools and diamond chest plates low to begin with. Demand for diamond would increase without mending under normal circumstances such as those in towns classic, however, extreme is not towns classic. The mere presence of villager breeding removes demand for diamond tools, chest plates, and enchantments for the majority of the server. Without demand for these items, demand for diamonds will not increase as people do not need to buy diamonds for tools (which are the only things that consistently breaks in the server currently).
Tl;dr: Without other changes, this suggestion will do little to affect the demand for diamonds. And for that reason, -1
