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Dave Stark
#41 - 2013-03-31 17:36:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Dave Stark
Darth Gustav wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
Darth Gustav wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
you made one post about that. the rest were about ice, which has nothing to do with the topic.


No, the rest were responses to you, Dave. You said ice wasn't a mineral.

That reading comprehension thing...apparently it's a doozy for writing stuff out and knowing what you put down, too.


i never explicitly stated that, at all.
in fact, i'm pretty sure i never even implied it.

i merely pointed out this is a thread about trit, and were talking about ice.


Well, in fairness I did bring up ice, as it also is related to the mining buffs and was the initial indicator of its inevitable effects.

There, see how the two are related? It's through the process of "mining."

Mining is a common tie between ice products and production minerals.

There, that's not so bad now, is it?


i don't think you can, in this context, compare ice to minerals. the entire problem is, as i pointed out, that so many things have been messing with low end minerals such as the loot changes, the tiericide speculation etc that there hasn't been an equilibrium price for nearly 18 months now, so this downward trend may not even really be worth noting (although, personally, i don't believe that. but it's still a possibility).
personally, i think we're *finally* finding an equilibrium price.

let's assume, for the moment, you are correct. ice is an indication of what will happen to ore. consider the following; the price of ore has never been higher, despite there being more miners.

i appreciate where you're trying to come from with your comparison between ice and minerals, but i feel even though it's both "mining" they're a bit of apples vs oranges due to the fact they're not quite mined in the same way, and the products are used for different things. i simply don't think they are similar enough to say "this happened to ice, so this will happen to minerals".


as an aside;
how much isk miners earn is largely irrelevant. more or less everything is tied to mineral prices.

for example about 18 months ago, trit was like 3 isk/unit, and a charon was 800m.
a few months ago when trit was 6 isk/unit a charon was 1.6bn isk.

it'd take me the same amount of man hours to buy a charon then, or now. purchasing power as a miner is basically a constant.
lower isk/hour for miners just means more purchasing power for every one else. that's all.
Darth Khasei
Wavestar Business Ventures Inc.
#42 - 2013-03-31 17:41:50 UTC
Chribba wrote:
One Chribba is enough, or any of the other secret keywords haha


Respect. Cool

Just wanted to personally thank you again for the ten million isk you gave me when I was a noob tooling around Amarr a few years ago.

Cheers!
Darth Gustav
Sith Interstellar Tech Harvesting
#43 - 2013-03-31 17:46:12 UTC
Dave Stark wrote:
Darth Gustav wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
Darth Gustav wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
you made one post about that. the rest were about ice, which has nothing to do with the topic.


No, the rest were responses to you, Dave. You said ice wasn't a mineral.

That reading comprehension thing...apparently it's a doozy for writing stuff out and knowing what you put down, too.


i never explicitly stated that, at all.
in fact, i'm pretty sure i never even implied it.

i merely pointed out this is a thread about trit, and were talking about ice.


Well, in fairness I did bring up ice, as it also is related to the mining buffs and was the initial indicator of its inevitable effects.

There, see how the two are related? It's through the process of "mining."

Mining is a common tie between ice products and production minerals.

There, that's not so bad now, is it?


i don't think you can, in this context, compare ice to minerals. the entire problem is, as i pointed out, that so many things have been messing with low end minerals such as the loot changes, the tiericide speculation etc that there hasn't been an equilibrium price for nearly 18 months now, so this downward trend may not even really be worth noting (although, personally, i don't believe that. but it's still a possibility).
personally, i think we're *finally* finding an equilibrium price.

let's assume, for the moment, you are correct. ice is an indication of what will happen to ore. consider the following; the price of ore has never been higher, despite there being more miners.

i appreciate where you're trying to come from with your comparison between ice and minerals, but i feel even though it's both "mining" they're a bit of apples vs oranges due to the fact they're not quite mined in the same way, and the products are used for different things. i simply don't think they are similar enough to say "this happened to ice, so this will happen to minerals".


The essence of my point is that when ice products' prices get low enough, miners will adapt by mining the next most relevant and expensive thing, regardless of how it's mined or what it's used for. For many, the process of mining is its own reward, the possibility of PLEXing one's account notwithstanding. Do you think the miners sucking the teat of icy ever-rocks use up all the fuel they mine, or do you think most of them are selling their wares on the market for ISK? I believe the latter, because I think it makes the most sense and can be seen as the trend among posters on the forum as well.

Now, with ice prices tanking and competition continuing to increase as new miners are added to the game's mining ranks through skill training, miners are feeling the pressure to find other ways to earn their ISK and/or PLEX. So they're mining Veldspar; since, yes, removing the shiny metals from drone drops created a momentary lapse in supply. My implication above is simple. I think the gap in supply is over. Miners are mining more Tritanium and that means more competition.

More competition means lower prices. Lower prices mean less ISK for miners for the same effort. Meanwhile, mission-runners and the like (anybody shooting rats) earn a more fixed income through direct ISK injection. The result of this is that miners can't afford PLEXes at the same price, say, null sec ratters can. That's bad for Eve, because mining should be a valuable profession. A high barrier to success can moderate that competition, attenuating price-drops in the process, or maybe even reversing them (under enough pressure).

Sorry, that was all covered in the post I linked from quite some time ago. I firmly stand by the connection between ice prices and trit prices, because they are sourced from the same subset of spaceships.

He who trolls trolls best when he who is trolled trolls the troller. -Darth Gustav's Axiom
Dave Stark
#44 - 2013-03-31 18:05:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Dave Stark
Darth Gustav wrote:
The essence of my point is that when ice products' prices get low enough, miners will adapt by mining the next most relevant and expensive thing, regardless of how it's mined or what it's used for. For many, the process of mining is its own reward, the possibility of PLEXing one's account notwithstanding. Do you think the miners sucking the teat of icy ever-rocks use up all the fuel they mine, or do you think most of them are selling their wares on the market for ISK? I believe the latter, because I think it makes the most sense and can be seen as the trend among posters on the forum as well.

Now, with ice prices tanking and competition continuing to increase as new miners are added to the game's mining ranks through skill training, miners are feeling the pressure to find other ways to earn their ISK and/or PLEX. So they're mining Veldspar; since, yes, removing the shiny metals from drone drops created a momentary lapse in supply. My implication above is simple. I think the gap in supply is over. Miners are mining more Tritanium and that means more competition.

More competition means lower prices. Lower prices mean less ISK for miners for the same effort. Meanwhile, mission-runners and the like (anybody shooting rats) earn a more fixed income through direct ISK injection. The result of this is that miners can't afford PLEXes at the same price, say, null sec ratters can. That's bad for Eve, because mining should be a valuable profession. A high barrier to success can moderate that competition, attenuating price-drops in the process, or maybe even reversing them (under enough pressure).

Sorry, that was all covered in the post I linked from quite some time ago. I firmly stand by the connection between ice prices and trit prices, because they are sourced from the same subset of spaceships.


i won't disagree. most miners will be selling all, or at least most, of their ice.

just spent some time googling and i can't find any sources to neither prove nor disprove the argument of "more people are mining trit" so i'll pose a counter quesiton; is there less demand for trit? and as such, is that a bigger factor than supply in determining the price of trit? a fact is that people stockpiled minerals prior to and during the early stages of tiericide. as such they have sufficient supply and are no longer purchasing, as such there's now a "void" in demand between the months when trit was over 6 isk/unit and now. (hence why i think we're only just finally seeing an equilibrium price for low ends).

you're right, more competition means lower prices, but so does less demand. yes, lower prices mean less isk for miners but as i said after i edited my previous post, that doesn't matter. also, i disagree that miners can't afford plex at the same price as null sec ratters. i say this because a post in MD a while ago was showing a link between mineral prices and plex [admittedly i didn't follow it that closely but there certainly seemed to be a link], once again how much a miner earns will be largely irrelevant.

again, i appreciate you feel that link is there due to supply. however due to the differing nature of demand for ore products vs ice products i'm not sure the link is as strong as you do.
Darth Gustav
Sith Interstellar Tech Harvesting
#45 - 2013-03-31 18:07:18 UTC
Dave Stark wrote:
Darth Gustav wrote:
The essence of my point is that when ice products' prices get low enough, miners will adapt by mining the next most relevant and expensive thing, regardless of how it's mined or what it's used for. For many, the process of mining is its own reward, the possibility of PLEXing one's account notwithstanding. Do you think the miners sucking the teat of icy ever-rocks use up all the fuel they mine, or do you think most of them are selling their wares on the market for ISK? I believe the latter, because I think it makes the most sense and can be seen as the trend among posters on the forum as well.

Now, with ice prices tanking and competition continuing to increase as new miners are added to the game's mining ranks through skill training, miners are feeling the pressure to find other ways to earn their ISK and/or PLEX. So they're mining Veldspar; since, yes, removing the shiny metals from drone drops created a momentary lapse in supply. My implication above is simple. I think the gap in supply is over. Miners are mining more Tritanium and that means more competition.

More competition means lower prices. Lower prices mean less ISK for miners for the same effort. Meanwhile, mission-runners and the like (anybody shooting rats) earn a more fixed income through direct ISK injection. The result of this is that miners can't afford PLEXes at the same price, say, null sec ratters can. That's bad for Eve, because mining should be a valuable profession. A high barrier to success can moderate that competition, attenuating price-drops in the process, or maybe even reversing them (under enough pressure).

Sorry, that was all covered in the post I linked from quite some time ago. I firmly stand by the connection between ice prices and trit prices, because they are sourced from the same subset of spaceships.


i won't disagree. most miners will be selling all, or at least most, of their ice.

just spent some time googling and i can't find any sources to neither prove nor disprove the argument of "more people are mining trit" so i'll pose a counter quesiton; is there less demand for trit? and as such, is that a bigger factor than supply in determining the price of trit? a fact is that people stockpiled minerals prior to and during the early stages of tiericide. as such they have sufficient supply and are no longer purchasing, as such there's now a "void" in demand between the months when trit was over 6 isk/unit and now. (hence why i think we're only just finally seeing an equilibrium price for low ends).

you're right, more competition means lower prices, but so does less demand. yes, lower prices mean less isk for miners but as i said after i edited my previous post, that doesn't matter. also, i disagree that miners can't afford plex at the same price as null sec ratters. i say this because a post in MD a while ago was showing a link between mineral prices and plex [admittedly i didn't follow it that closely but there certainly seemed to be a link].

again, i appreciate you feel that link is there due to supply. however due to the differing nature of demand for ore products vs ice products i'm not sure the link is as strong as you do.


I'm virtually positive ship hulls keep exploding at a fairly constant rate. See also: Akiko.

He who trolls trolls best when he who is trolled trolls the troller. -Darth Gustav's Axiom
Dave Stark
#46 - 2013-03-31 18:09:16 UTC
Darth Gustav wrote:
I'm virtually positive ship hulls keep exploding at a fairly constant rate. See also: Akiko.


so you're convinced a few miners are having more impact on trit prices than almost 18 months of changes and speculation?
Darth Gustav
Sith Interstellar Tech Harvesting
#47 - 2013-03-31 18:13:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Darth Gustav
Dave Stark wrote:
Darth Gustav wrote:
I'm virtually positive ship hulls keep exploding at a fairly constant rate. See also: Akiko.


so you're convinced a few miners are having more impact on trit prices than almost 18 months of changes and speculation?


The changes were sudden. We have been slowly digging ourselves out of the supply crunch since they were made.

The mining buff makes this job easier. Sadly, it made mining ice much easier. So ice was the initial indicator, in my belief.

I think that, while dips in demand may occur (some even attributable to much more stout mining vessels and a lower demand on destroyer hulls), the overall demand of tritanium is pretty amazingly constant.

I'm not saying it's a "few miners" making the whole difference, but rather that a few more pushed us past the equilibrium point.

He who trolls trolls best when he who is trolled trolls the troller. -Darth Gustav's Axiom
DarthNefarius
Minmatar Heavy Industries
#48 - 2013-03-31 18:14:12 UTC
Chribba wrote:
No blood, no Dallas.

/c


I shot Chribba
An' then Chicken@little.com, he come scramblin outta the    Terminal room screaming "The system's crashing! The system's    crashing!" -Uncle RAMus, 'Tales for Cyberpsychotic Children'
Dave Stark
#49 - 2013-03-31 18:29:22 UTC
Darth Gustav wrote:
The changes were sudden. We have been slowly digging ourselves out of the supply crunch since they were made.

The mining buff makes this job easier. Sadly, it made mining ice much easier. So ice was the initial indicator, in my belief.

I think that, while dips in demand may occur (some even attributable to much more stout mining vessels and a lower demand on destroyer hulls), the overall demand of tritanium is pretty amazingly constant.

I'm not saying it's a "few miners" making the whole difference, but rather that a few more pushed us past the equilibrium point.


i'm not convinced that declining ice prices are making people switch to minerals. i can't see it myself.

people mine ice, because they can do it while afk or while doing something else. it takes 2 weeks to train in to a retriever with t2 fittings. perhaps a touch longer, certainly under 3 weeks, however.
personally, if i were to be mining ice purely for the almost entirely passive income stream then i'm sure as soon as they stopped generating enough isk for plex i'd just let them lapse. if i had wanted to do something more active (like mining proper asteroids) then i'd have trained them to do so because that's more lucrative than mining ice, or mining ore.

i don't know, i just have trouble imagining ice miners turning in to ore miners. i also can't see non miners turning to mining to make isk. even at 6 isk/unit for trit it STILL wasn't more lucrative than null sec ratting, or incursions or whatever. the only people i can see bothering to mine ore, are new miners who are also new players.
Whitehound
#50 - 2013-03-31 18:29:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Whitehound
Darth Gustav wrote:
The essence of my point is that when ice products' prices get low enough, miners will adapt by mining the next most relevant and expensive thing, regardless of how it's mined or what it's used for. ...

Just because you understand the theory does this not mean EVE works like this, too. Sorry if this disappoints.

I trade in minerals for 4 years now and I have seen weird behaviour by both buyers and sellers. Some buy minerals for the highest prices and others sell theirs to the lowest bidders. Speculators can be just as weird, because they are sometimes smarter than is good for them and then put their ISKs onto the wrong pony.

It is then a good day when everything works according to theory and a bad day when players trade in stupidity or whatever instead of minerals.

My best guess is that the new mining frigates together with the increased player numbers have been increasing the supply of minerals (without increasing the demand), because the curves (player numbers, volumes, prices) run about in parallel for some time now and they all started to change around December/January.

Yet, it could be something completely different. All it sometimes needs for prices to change is a very rich player changing markets and you will never know about it.

Loss is meaningful. Therefore is the loss of meaning likewise meaningful. It is the source of all trolling.
Darth Gustav
Sith Interstellar Tech Harvesting
#51 - 2013-03-31 18:30:53 UTC
Dave Stark wrote:
Darth Gustav wrote:
The changes were sudden. We have been slowly digging ourselves out of the supply crunch since they were made.

The mining buff makes this job easier. Sadly, it made mining ice much easier. So ice was the initial indicator, in my belief.

I think that, while dips in demand may occur (some even attributable to much more stout mining vessels and a lower demand on destroyer hulls), the overall demand of tritanium is pretty amazingly constant.

I'm not saying it's a "few miners" making the whole difference, but rather that a few more pushed us past the equilibrium point.


i'm not convinced that declining ice prices are making people switch to minerals. i can't see it myself.

people mine ice, because they can do it while afk or while doing something else. it takes 2 weeks to train in to a retriever with t2 fittings. perhaps a touch longer, certainly under 3 weeks, however.
personally, if i were to be mining ice purely for the almost entirely passive income stream then i'm sure as soon as they stopped generating enough isk for plex i'd just let them lapse. if i had wanted to do something more active (like mining proper asteroids) then i'd have trained them to do so because that's more lucrative than mining ice, or mining ore.

i don't know, i just have trouble imagining ice miners turning in to ore miners. i also can't see non miners turning to mining to make isk. even at 6 isk/unit for trit it STILL wasn't more lucrative than null sec ratting, or incursions or whatever. the only people i can see bothering to mine ore, are new miners who are also new players.

Remember, I said new miners are being added through skill training ice miners are not becoming trit miners in droves. Though a few will probably make the switch (eventually).

He who trolls trolls best when he who is trolled trolls the troller. -Darth Gustav's Axiom
Darth Gustav
Sith Interstellar Tech Harvesting
#52 - 2013-03-31 18:33:39 UTC
Whitehound wrote:
Darth Gustav wrote:
The essence of my point is that when ice products' prices get low enough, miners will adapt by mining the next most relevant and expensive thing, regardless of how it's mined or what it's used for. ...

Just because you understand the theory does this not mean EVE works like this, too. Sorry if this disappoints.

I trade in minerals for 4 years now and I have seen weird behaviour by both buyers and sellers. Some buy minerals for the highest prices and others sell theirs to the lowest bidders. Speculators can be just as weird, because they are sometimes smarter than is good for them and then put their ISKs onto the wrong pony.

It is then a good day when everything works according to theory and a bad day when players trade in stupidity or whatever instead of minerals.

My best guess is that the new mining frigates together with the increased player numbers have been increasing the supply of minerals (without increasing the demand), because the curves (player numbers, volumes, prices) run about in parallel for some time now and they all started to climb around December/January.

Yet, it could be something completely different. All it sometimes needs is for a very rich player to change markets and you will never know about it.


OK show me proof that Eve doesn't behave predictably based on economic theory and I'll concede your point. It looks to me like it does, though, especially since CCP employs an economist to ensure this.

You basically said more people are mining trit with no new associated demand. Where did their spaceships come from? Also, wouldn't their trit be in more demand if players were actively depredating miners again?

How can you refute my points with points that are the same as mine? Lol

He who trolls trolls best when he who is trolled trolls the troller. -Darth Gustav's Axiom
Dave Stark
#53 - 2013-03-31 18:38:34 UTC
Darth Gustav wrote:
Remember, I said new miners are being added through skill training ice miners are not becoming trit miners in droves. Though a few will probably make the switch (eventually).


oh, i have no doubt there are more miners now than there were before. ccp proved that. however i can't for the life of me remember if the graph of volume mined was just ore, or included ice. i would not be surprised if most new miners went for ice due to it's sheer afkability.

if those new miners aren't mining ore then the increase in miners is irrelevant to the price of trit.

i don't think those that do convert from ice to ore are of sufficient number to cause a drop from over 6isk/unit to nearly 5.5isk/unit in such a short space of time.
Dave Stark
#54 - 2013-03-31 18:39:33 UTC
Darth Gustav wrote:
Where did their spaceships come from?


tutorial.
massively overproduced stockpiles due to mining barge buff speculation.
Whitehound
#55 - 2013-03-31 19:04:43 UTC
Darth Gustav wrote:
OK show me proof that Eve doesn't behave predictably based on economic theory and I'll concede your point. It looks to me like it does, though, especially since CCP employs an economist to ensure this.

What is there not to understand or what kind of proof would you need?! Just look at any long term chart and compare the volumes with the prices. You will find many ups and downs, where some came suddenly and sharp, while the effect of demand and offer works subtle and takes a long time before both meet and creates smooth curves.

Also, CCP does not employ economists to ensure everything works according to theory, but rather to have people around who can reasonably well predict the game's economy without being completely fooled by it. However, they sure do not "ensure" or give any other kind of guarantee on how the market will behave. This is just impossible. One proof for this is Technetium and how it was possible for players to corner the market with it. They did not see this coming, did they?

Loss is meaningful. Therefore is the loss of meaning likewise meaningful. It is the source of all trolling.
Darth Gustav
Sith Interstellar Tech Harvesting
#56 - 2013-03-31 19:36:25 UTC
Whitehound wrote:
Darth Gustav wrote:
OK show me proof that Eve doesn't behave predictably based on economic theory and I'll concede your point. It looks to me like it does, though, especially since CCP employs an economist to ensure this.

What is there not to understand or what kind of proof would you need?! Just look at any long term chart and compare the volumes with the prices. You will find many ups and downs, where some came suddenly and sharp, while the effect of demand and offer works subtle and takes a long time before both meet and creates smooth curves.

Also, CCP does not employ economists to ensure everything works according to theory, but rather to have people around who can reasonably well predict the game's economy without being completely fooled by it. However, they sure do not "ensure" or give any other kind of guarantee on how the market will behave. This is just impossible. One proof for this is Technetium and how it was possible for players to corner the market with it. They did not see this coming, did they?


Emergent gameplay is not immune to economic theory.

Nothing in this post proves that Eve's market fails to behave according to predictive models based entirely in economic theory.

Somehow I doubt that you can demonstrate a single example of Eve's economy not behaving according to predictions.

And yes, that includes supply stores being opened up due to price increases stalling out around 6 ISK.

He who trolls trolls best when he who is trolled trolls the troller. -Darth Gustav's Axiom
Darth Gustav
Sith Interstellar Tech Harvesting
#57 - 2013-03-31 19:54:22 UTC
Dave Stark wrote:
Darth Gustav wrote:
Remember, I said new miners are being added through skill training ice miners are not becoming miners in droves. Though a few will probably make the switch (eventually).


oh, i have no doubt there are more miners now than there were before. ccp proved that. however i can't for the life of me remember if the graph of volume mined was just ore, or included ice. i would not be surprised if most new miners went for ice due to it's sheer afkability.

if those new miners aren't mining ore then the increase in miners is irrelevant to the price of trit.

i don't think those that do convert from ice to ore are of sufficient number to cause a drop from over 6isk/unit to nearly 5.5isk/unit in such a short space of time.


Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't there some pretty beefy skills between being able to mine Veldspar and being able to mine ice?

What makes you think miners would ignore the products they can mine now in favor of products they won't be able to mine until later?

How would new miners mining stuff that they can actually mine not effect prices of the stuff they mined?

He who trolls trolls best when he who is trolled trolls the troller. -Darth Gustav's Axiom
Whitehound
#58 - 2013-03-31 20:05:54 UTC
Darth Gustav wrote:
And yes, that includes supply stores being opened up due to price increases stalling out around 6 ISK.

"And yes"? No, just no... Lol

I am guessing you are trying to save yourself from losing an argument, but I really do not care about it, but only tell how it is. I am not interested in winning an argument with you! I do not want you to lose, but rather win some insights.

One just cannot predict if and when speculators sell back into the market or when they start buying. Someone loses a ship and need ISKs and so they sell whatever they have regardless of current prices. Others want to get in on a speculation but have lost their ISKs and so cannot buy. Nobody can foresee such events. We have no knowledge of the future.

This is why I say that it has good and bad days. Sometimes the markets behave predictably and sometimes they do not.

Loss is meaningful. Therefore is the loss of meaning likewise meaningful. It is the source of all trolling.
Skorpynekomimi
#59 - 2013-03-31 20:07:01 UTC
Darth Gustav wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
Darth Gustav wrote:
Remember, I said new miners are being added through skill training ice miners are not becoming miners in droves. Though a few will probably make the switch (eventually).


oh, i have no doubt there are more miners now than there were before. ccp proved that. however i can't for the life of me remember if the graph of volume mined was just ore, or included ice. i would not be surprised if most new miners went for ice due to it's sheer afkability.

if those new miners aren't mining ore then the increase in miners is irrelevant to the price of trit.

i don't think those that do convert from ice to ore are of sufficient number to cause a drop from over 6isk/unit to nearly 5.5isk/unit in such a short space of time.


Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't there some pretty beefy skills between being able to mine Veldspar and being able to mine ice?

What makes you think miners would ignore the products they can mine now in favor of products they won't be able to mine until later?

How would new miners mining stuff that they can actually mine not effect prices of the stuff they mined?


Beefy skills, like Ice Harvesting?

Economic PVP
Dave Stark
#60 - 2013-03-31 20:11:33 UTC
Darth Gustav wrote:
Dave Stark wrote:
Darth Gustav wrote:
Remember, I said new miners are being added through skill training ice miners are not becoming miners in droves. Though a few will probably make the switch (eventually).


oh, i have no doubt there are more miners now than there were before. ccp proved that. however i can't for the life of me remember if the graph of volume mined was just ore, or included ice. i would not be surprised if most new miners went for ice due to it's sheer afkability.

if those new miners aren't mining ore then the increase in miners is irrelevant to the price of trit.

i don't think those that do convert from ice to ore are of sufficient number to cause a drop from over 6isk/unit to nearly 5.5isk/unit in such a short space of time.


Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't there some pretty beefy skills between being able to mine Veldspar and being able to mine ice?

What makes you think miners would ignore the products they can mine now in favor of products they won't be able to mine until later?

How would new miners mining stuff that they can actually mine not effect prices of the stuff they mined?


perfect ice mining requires a lot less than perfect veld mining. as far as a retriever goes. just jump in the ship, takes about a week, ice harvesting, takes about 5 days, ice harvester upgrades takes another day or so, maybe some cpu skills to fit t2 harvesters without issue...
in comparison astrogeology V alone takes two or three weeks, just for IV to V. ridiculous skill. then there's crystals etc.

training to mine ice is far easier than training to mine ore. as i said, you only need the bare minimum skills to sit in a retriever (about a week) and then about a week or so of training ice harvesting/mining laser upgrades and you've practically got max yield. all you're missing out is 5% cycle time bonus from being in a mackinaw which honestly isn't worth it when you're making ~7m/hour and the ship is like 200m itself.

hell, i'm mining ore, and even the 5% on nearly 30m/hour isn't tempting enough to spend another 200m on a 2nd mackinaw. especially since i've got to train more skills so i can fit it with tanking modules etc. just isn't worth it. however that's another discussion for another time.

anyway assuming perfect skills, why would they ignore one over the other? as i said, afkability. set up 30 ice mining accounts and it's free isk, when they stop producing enough isk to fund their own plex just drop the accounts and you've lost nothing but you had a month or so of "free" isk from ice mining.