Had this thought after reading alexsosa's post about taking leave and reading an exchange between him and hugsfordrugs about the difficulties of being a vendor. So (serious question I'm not being sarcastic or snarky) what really are the benefits to being a vendor in this line of work? I've always honestly wondered that, with both street dealers and online dealers. Obviously the list of negatives are a mile long, high stress, risk of long jail time, constant questions and complaints from customers, time spent making packages, constantly needing to be secretive and not look suspicious, dealing with some undesirable characters, laundering of bitcoins, etc., could go on forever.
So what are the positives? Of course most will say money. That's a valid one and really the only one I can think of. But is it really that money for most vendors or dealers? Enough to make it worth all the negatives? Obviously the huge vendors on the markets and the upper level people in the street drug game probably make a significant amount of money, although theirs may also be tied into legitimate businesses to give them credibility. But for your average or low level online vendor or street dealer is it really that much? Is it enough even to support yourself as a full time job or is it done on the side as just an extra little source of income?
I ask because I used to think it was like the movies or tv, where dealers were all rich, surrounded by hot women, living in mansions and driving expensive cars. When I saw real life dealers and got to know some of them, it seemed to be the opposite, they lived low income lives, scraping to get by and never having much money or never any nice things. They seem to get hassled with customers day and night annoying them, and ways have constant worry of getting busted holding or for anything. I assume the same principle of different levels of sellers (from low level to high level) is present on the markets, but most vendors I assume are medium and lower. For these vendors I ask why? Is the money worth all the hassle? Would it be worth instead having a legal job that didn't have all the negatives?
Or is it not just the money, are there other perks I'm not seeing? I just wonder why bother and know that for a job with so many negatives there must be something substantial to make it worth doing or people wouldn't bother. And please don't take these questions as any kind of judgement you might think I'm making against dealers, like I'm trying to say they should get legal jobs, thank god they don't or where would I get my fun stuff from ;) I seriously just am curious what drives those in the business to do it, and have a career in something where the risk to their personal freedom is potentially so high.
And speaking towards the customer side of things, you could ask them same: why do we do what we do given the risk involved? But that answer is clear cut and simple. We like the effects and our potential penalty is fairly low compared to a dealer. Which makes me wonder, how many of us customers would accept a job like dealer, with all it's negatives, if the pay was high enough? How much is enough to convince u the risk is worth it? We all can be bought for a price, what's yours?
I'm not a vendor so take my opinion with a grain of salt, and hopefully we'll have some legit vendors comment here with first-hand experience.
I think money is certainly a huge aspect for a vendor. Every now and again we'll get a glimpse at their earnings, whether from a comment or just calculations, and even medium-size vending operations can easily rake in hundreds of thousands a year. If you are a quality vendor and create a name for yourself to become a top vendor, you're looking at millions, and the amount of millions is up to you.
For example, take a look at the history of DNM scammers. The list is long but my two favorite are DoD and LucyDrop. The game is simple: offer the best service and lowest prices on your stock for a few months to establish yourself as a top vendor, still making decent money in the process but certainly taking a pay cut, then scam the fuck out of everyone who FE'd due to you being a "trusted vendor". I'm hesitant to throw out any numbers since I don't have links to back them up and am relying solely on my memory, but I want to say it was estimated that LucyDrop scammed $500,000+ from her exit scam, which took about 1-2 months thanks to dumbasses who didn't read recent feedback. That's half a million in one or two months. Pretty damn good money. And God only knows how big DoD's pile of cash is as he sits at his computer in the basement day after day, surrounded by it all like he's fucking Scrooge McDuck.
But TBH, I don't think money is the #1 reason that vendors set up shop on a DNM. I'll look at this from two angles: DNM vending vs. IRL dealing, and the allure of selling drugs in general.
DNM vending vs. IRL dealing: This is a choice based on the advantages and disadvantages of both, and I think it'd be foolish to say that one is better than the other across the board. Frankly, many IRL dealers have no business on the DNMs and conversely, many DNM vendors wouldn't last a week on the streets.
DNMs allow a level of anonymity that IRL dealing usually can't provide unless you're extremely strict or high up in the chain. DNMs don't require face to face communication with customers. No meetups for deals, which means no impatiently waiting in a car for 2 hours for some asshole to show up and buy an ounce of weed. No worry of violence or thugs thanks to anonymity. You can set your pace and your hours and reply to customers as you please instead of having your phone blow up when a customer is impatient.
Disadvantages: Tons of extra work to do due to the time and effort it takes to maintain security and anonymity. Stealth alone is a huge time consumer. Using different post offices and driving there daily. Changing stealth every few months, and putting it together in the first place. From what I've gathered from various vendors, shipping and packaging alone can take up a good 50% of their day.
Then you have to consider the amount of bullshit that they get from customers on the daily. Lying customers trying to scam them for free drugs, idiots who don't use PGP or ask retarded questions, impatient customers who send you 5 messages in an hour because you didn't reply to the first one, customers asking for a price break or a custom order because they're a little short. Then you have the real stuff that is important to take care of, such as chaning the status of every order correctly, dealing with possible disputes and no-shows, etc. I can only imagine how exhausting this all is, and TBH I would choose IRL dealing over DNM vending because of this. I just don't think I could do it.
But why do they do it? Why not work a normal, legal job?
Money aside (which can be a huge factor as some people are making tons more money than they ever would at whatever job they could get), many vendors just enjoy what they do. Maybe they have an interest in drugs or in sales. Maybe they just enjoy working out of their home or having more flexibility than the average job allows. Or maybe they're just rebels and DNM vending provides them with the excitement and danger that thrills them. It's probably different for each vendor, but I'd imagine that if they didn't like it, they wouldn't do it. They'd be doing exactly what you said and working at some normal job.