1) Bots wc mahogany. 2) Bots sell mahogany keeping the prices low. 3) Bots use the mahogany to make planks, and 4) Bots keep mahogany planks (and all other planks using the same method) low. This is how any buyable skill becomes bearably expensive. Without bots, herb could be upwards of 1b, 800mil using the cheapest methods. Sure, bots are the annoying little [bleep]s at your tree or rock, and believe me, I hate them too, but if you ever plan on a buyable skillcape, we need them. I don't bot, but I know people who do, and they give the above reasons. And sure, bots may keep buyable skillcapes within the reason, but you might (and probably will, eventually) get reported, have your stats reset, and there's nothing you can do about it. So do the pros outweigh the cons? No, they don't. Here's why: I'll use yew logs as an example now. Yews are a very heavily botted resource, which keeps their prices at about 450-500 gp. Now, let's say all the bots are gone. For a short period of time, yew logs skyrocket to 800gp, the supply withers, but because yew logs are considered the best fletching xp for the money by many, or firemaking xp, the demand is smaller, but still there. Now, players see the high price of the yew logs, and begin to chop them. New players train wc, an easy skill, to 60 to chop yews. And after a few weeks, the price goes back to normal, without any bots. Assuming no one merches yew logs in that time.