I have a gaian account by the same name as my account on here. I've been a mem since September 2003. It was a great community back then, small, but big enough that threads didn't stay stale (sort of like how they get on here :/ ). Everyone was really nice and I never heard once of anyone getting hacked. Gold wasn't overly easy to get, so the economy was stable. Items were reasonable to get, with the few that were out there, like 6-8K, but they were some of the nicest items at the time. You could even get donation letters (as they were called back then, they're now called Monthly collectibles) for 4-5K. Now, its virtually impossible to find them at that price, unless someone goofed up on their pricings in the market.

Heck, back in 2003 and most of 2004 there wasn't even a marketplace. You had to buy your items from other uses in the Exchange forum. And more devotion was payed to the users. The admins really cared for us and our experiences on their site. If there was a glitch they jumped right on it, not wait 3 months to fix it.

Now I see Gaia as annoying. I still go on there to chat with people I only know on there, but the way they run things bugs the crud out of me. They don't care about their users anymore and they are so Cash centric now and I refuse to send my real, hard earned money on pixels. I just can't afford to do that! There are a lot of things I could do with even just $10 - like put it towards buy food and gas.