I can't speak for other people, but for myself I spent a fair bit of time lurking before I made an account. Without this site, I'd have some non-dice sluggos and call it a day. Instead, I have in my possession or on the way:
A dragonara palace milled and relabeled cash set (nearly complete, still have a few chips to mill and label)
1 mixed mold ASM hot stamp tourney set with extras
2 custom
CPC sets on the way
1 halloween limit set on diecar
3
tina sets (web mold, sun mold, and no mold)
several racks of hot stamped solid ASM/
CPC chips from which I could easily assemble something resembling a playable set.
a mixed mold rat rod set I'm working on building
idk how many singles I just thought were cool (part of what started the rat rod set)
a couple misc racks
And that is after clearing out a bunch of other stuff I got but didn't need any more.
I doubt I'm the norm, but I've seen several folks come through with a similar story arc since I joined. And some folks who jumped in even harder, designing sets and helping others along their journey. If for every one of us even 10 people come through, order a
tina set from justin, and then disappear I'm fine with that.
I also don't think it's fair to say that if you can only afford
Tina you can't afford poker chips or to play poker. Some folks have $3-400 of disposable income for something like poker chips and if they want to spend it on a
Tina set more power to them. Maybe they only play 5c/10c and good luck finding a Paulson set to do that with without at least over labeling. Would also cost you more than you likely have on the poker table for an entire year combined at those stakes.
At the end of the day, does it really cost you anything not to crap on other peoples' enjoyment of the hobby, even if it isn't the same as yours?