It's getting out of control, can't Blizzard just impose a maximum selling price? Let's say... nothing can't be sold above $20? (example)
Something like that? No?
Sure no one is obliged to use the RMAH, but that's ridiculous. I think I'd rather just play a F2P MMORPG and maybe spend $30 for various micro-transaction-based extras (such as new "chapters" or maps, or having access to more content or whatever), or even just vanity items (heck sure I guess I'd pay $5 for a set of vanity so I could maybe see more of my female toons skin). I was expecting most items - even "uber" ones - to be sold for maybe no more than around $15 or $20 each, with most of them at around $2 or $3... boy was I wrong (and surely naive). Instead I'm seeing items at $60+ and most of them wouldn't have been sold for more than maybe 2 or 3 million Gold even two weeks ago, which can be farmed in a matter of a day or two by most players whom might be looking for such items to start with.
My issue with the RMAH, even though it's not "imposed" per se, is that it still consists of a potential form of a "Pay-to-Win" advantage for people using that to... well, to gear up their toon(s) to become uber without the "hassle" (for them) of actually playing the game, which will obviously influence how the PvP will be going when it gets out. Watch as the Level 60's PvP'ing encounters the inevitable duels of players geared up in uber items from the RMAH's "best", against the players using the "crappy" GAH's "crappiest", thus leading to the predictable rage quits and complaints of unfairness and "imbalances". Good thing I myself never planned to play PvP though (and I did I think less than a dozen times in D2 over seven years or so).
None of the whole RMAH business should affect solo'ing (obviously, no one cares if Mr. Joe is uber from the RMAH but still mostly plays alone anyway) nor co-operation though. Now, that's for the people using the RMAH to gear up... that's one thing. The other category of "players" aren't players per se, they end up (or always planned to from the start) using the RMAH to make real-life money out of farming the game for items that can be sold, and becoming absolutely oblivious to the game as being "a game", but then considering it as a form of income, however negligible that income can ever be. I mean sure they have to "play" the game to farm said items worthy of selling for a cent, or a grand, but will they do it out of enjoyment of the game itself? I doubt it. Maybe their bot(s) will enjoy that though. It'll be more something along the lines of "let's log-in and let's try to find some items to make some cash so I can go buy my free BigMac", rather than "let's go play some Diablo III".
All of it will, I believe, simply contribute to accelerate the process of the game's degradation over time (a short period of time at that). I can't see D3 being "desirable" anymore in just a few months, and it already got to that point for many (even regardless of the RMAH business). I think that most of the game's loss in popularity will mostly come from word of mouth and the perception of the community, even by players whom were not nor ever planned to use the RMAH. Such "indifferent" players (to the RMAH) might still be discouraged to play especially when seeing uber-RMAH-geared toons 1-hitting everything in 4 players Inferno games, then asking them if it took them a long time to find said items, with the uber player replying "nah, bought @ RMAH lolz, played like 3 days on this toon lolz". Yeah must be fun knowing that the Demon Hunter next to you is being played by a guy who apparently doesn't want to progress with a challenge.
Meh...
Ultimately though, in retrospect, it's not that different from what happened with Diablo II and D2JSP, which one could argue that it (D2JSP) was just an unofficial "auction house" of sort. I've used that site myself for D2 trading for a time, since of course in-game trading in Diablo II was virtually non-existent, unless you could obviously find other D2JSP users and then en up trading via their forums anyway. Just like D3's auction house(s), one could just trade items there to receive the D2JSP's own currency, and never "have to" spend a real life dime for anything... or of course you could "donate" to D2JSP and in return receive 'x' amount of said currency to your account. That, or you could of course ignore D2JSP altogether and just "play on your own" forever, but doing that in D2 is making the game more of a chore than anything else, unless you play off-line and take the game with a grain of salt that happens to not be that much of a grain and is instead the size of our Sun.
With that said... despite D2JSP (which has existed since... many years) Diablo II is still going, perhaps even stronger than D3 as I type this. Heh maybe D3 will still be going "strong" despite the RMAH... who knows huh? Anyway, I can't wait to see someone posting a picture of their newly-bought HD television thanks to a few weeks (or days) worth of money made from RMAH transactions. Come to think of it I want new GPU, might as well just farm Inferno Act 1 to... ah crap never mind I leveled up a Barbarian, damn...