You are absolutely right. I was lucky enough to be here when I didn't have to pay for my account. At the time, I probably wouldn't have bought in. I was only going to sell enough so that i could get enough bitcoins so that i could buy stuff that i wanted. Since then, Its turned out a lot different. the 150 that it costs to buy an account is a chump change to starting this type of venture. There are a lot of factors that are involved and a lot of it depends on what your going to sell and your cost. Some of my costs are huge. But, I think you need a good wireless internet card (one thats not attached to your name or address) but with TOR taking so little bandwidth you can get away with a very small plan if all you use it for it TOR stuff. (10 bucks a month..) either a cheap computer that has all the cool stuff to keep your anonymity. Good gloves (a small business can go thru a ton of those in a month) baggies (good ones are fairly expensive) and then the food saver stuff. Some businesses dont need one. Especially if they dont send outside of their country and their product wont set off any dog alarms,,etc like pharmaceuticals.. But its still a good idea to get one, no matter what. I would say that it costs me about 7-8 (or more) bucks to ship a package. I use DCN, use great packaging material, etc. you can go cheap with an enevelope, but then your asking for trouble. I also figure that it takes me about 10 to 15 minutes to put together each package. Tor is slow, etc. So, not only does this take a descent financial commitment. Be prepared to spend 10 times more time than you would think that you would need. I can see why vendors come and go. They see the ability to make a lot of money, but then realize it takes a lot of work. I haven't even mentioned dealing with angry or anxious customers that expect their product yesterday. Nor the ones that reverse scams. So, you have to build all this stuff into your cost. I can pretty much guess which vendors are going to make it by how much they charge. If they are charging way too much, most likely they wont make it. same with the ones that think " Hey, I can sell that pill for 10 dollars less than anyone else" then they find that extra 10 bucks is needed to make a profit. There are so many unknowns that you really just need to jump into it and see if its for you. Its also wise to take small vacations no and then. Its not really business smart to do that, but I think its necessary in this biz...