Here are some arguments as to why I think Hek is the better trade hub.
It’s halfway between Jita and Amarr, so it can pull traffic from both hubs.
It lies near the center of modern high sec. When randomly landing into high sec from a wormhole / filament, or randomly exploring, you’re more likely to be closer to Hek than Jita.
You can place structures directly in Hek, unlike Jita.
Hek is right next door to low sec (Otou), which is perfect for jump freighters.
Hek is next door to Lanngisi, probably THE busiest mission hub in high sec.
Faction warfare is only two jumps away (Resbroko).
0.5 sec status means more customers with mildly negative security standings.
Only you can make it happen. Put more wares up for sale in Hek for reasonable prices and people from all the areas that you mentioned will shop in Hek rather than Jita. Be the first to make a difference and do what you are supposed to do.
Because people are lazy and too stupid to actually make it happen. They always rather ask for clutches from CCP to remove Jita, like a tax system similar to industry indexes. Funny thing is that all these minor hubs depend on Jita for their existence in the first place. Even this guy here can’t live without Jita:
Why would you pull traffic from Jita if you want to overtake or have overtaken Jita? Jita would have to take traffic from Hek instead. It’s always the same logical fallacies that these people cling to.
Your arguments seem to be a case for why Hek might be a better location, not why it is a better hub. The two need not be synonomous.
Based on my (very) limited experience, including a very limited range of goods traded, Perimeter already appears to be a better hub than Jita. This based on both price and safety. But maybe offset by smaller range of goods and ultimately volumes?
Hek no.
But seriously. The markets each have their pros and cons, I have no favorite. Unless that I would use Hek a lot more often if
I’ve made a point of shopping at Rens and Hek for years. I check them first then Amarr and Jita last. But the reality is that Jita has had and still have more choice options than the other hubs. Amarr comes close but the prices aren’t much different than Jita and why the Hek would I buy a an expensive module in Amarr only to transport it to Jita where the ship I want is available only there? Can only jump one way and the busy traffic out of Jita is perfect to travel to and from for the sheer variety of ships jumping through those gates.
Exactly. Only players can change that by selling in the other hubs instead of Jita. That only works, however, if a comprehensive variety of good is available continuously and at good prices, ie no more expensive than Jita. Since players don’t do that, they don’t want a more distributed market in the first place. It makes sense to have a concentrated market in an environment with such a small population in any case. People need a central place where they can buy all the things and not many places where they piece together all the necessary things and waste tons of time that they could have spent out in space dying.
I think that CCP has already invested a lot of effort into making Jita 4-4 a really cool looking station. They will be damned if the central trade hub migrated to Hek.
If the game were to launch today, Hek might have had a good chance of becoming the dominant trade hub. However, Jita’s prices, customer base, and item availability encourage people to continue trading there in spite of the fact that the reasons that it became the biggest trade hub have mostly been removed. Thus, I’d imagine that there would have to be some big changes still before one of the other trade hubs took the crown from Jita.
BTW, I heard that Yulai used to be the biggest trade hub before I started playing. Does anyone know why that changed?
