I think if you look at the bigger picture, giving out free Donator ranks has very rarely resulted in people donating. The main reason is that the people playing are mostly kids. The vast majority do not have access to a bank card (used in order to buy Donator) and therefore are not going to pay.

"Huh, cool, free Donator lol"

Obviously this does not go for all product providers that give a product for essentially free. In the real world, run by adults, the rates of people being interested in buying a product after testing are much higher. But due to the target demographic here, your point becomes, essentially, entirely irrelevant.

We already have a way to get Donator perks without donating; it's called Voter rank. Voting undoubtedly helps the server much more than a "donator token" ever would.

Ignoring the rest of your points about reflecting on the server's economy if this was ever implemented; they are entirely irrelevant, because the whole thing about Donator, is that it's a consumable, one-time use, realistically non-tangible perk.

i think you misunderstood, i never said donator rank should be given for free, all i said is, peope who already DID pay for the rank with REAL money , can choose either to activate it, or sell it, so no donator rank would exist without being actually paid with real money, only difference is, after you paid for the rank, with real money, you can choose either to use it or to sell it on /ah, which then allows the others to potentially obtain the donator rank without paying with real money for it, even if rank was already paid for , with real money, by the person selling it on /ah

I didnt just come up with this off the top of my mind, thats how basically all monthly subscriptions work, for example WoW tokens, and ArcheAge patron tokens, you simply can buy the token from a player that has paid for it with real money, therefore, no token is essentially given out for "in game currency" without being paid for in real money first. you literally didnt even bother trying to understand what i said and you instantly decided to go on "debunking mode" to try and invalidate my suggestion even if thats basically the "META" of monthly subscriptions paid for real money in gaming world basically everywhere.

I hate saying this but in this case, Nuxyr is right. If a token is paid for (in real money, like donator ranks currently are), there is no reason to make it untradeable for in-game currency. So imagine this: i want in-game money, i buy a donator token, i sell it. the donator token is paid for. all i did is trade it for the currency that already existed. the system is proven to work in practice in multiple games with player-driven economy. it does not make the donator rank free, it just makes a person able to sell it for in-game currency to other players. other than giving the in-game currency a value in real life currency (by players being able to purchase something that is paid for in rl currency with in-game currency) it gives the willing players an opportunity to purchase the in-game currency with real money without causing inflation (because no money is added to the economy, they buy a token and sell it to someone who already had a money). If you want research WoW game time tokens. it is literally the same system but in practice. there is no need to argue what would happen if it was implemented, the system is already functioning.

TLDR: Make donators able to sell their (already paid) ranks for in-game currency to other players before activating them.

Nuxyr is right giving donator rank (I mean some players buy the donater rank for irl money and sell them in game)for in game money is very cool. It's there in some servers also. In this way donations may increase also.

As much as I like the idea it would give donators a free income in trade ingame which is a terrible thing for non donators. Even though they'd have the chance to get donator for ingame currency the people selling donator would get a monopoly over that part of trade which in return discriminates merchants that cant buy donator.

I love the concept but it's just the fancy way of earning ccnet money with irl money (which is downright a pay to win moment)

@Nuxyr Oh then in that case it goes directly against Mojang EULA since you get in-game advantage (money) by paying (for a Donator token that you sell). So this is completely out of the picture.

Maybe just gift Donator. Or, more simply, let ppl stick to Voter. Essentially same perks, and 100% free.

And yeah, as @PuR1Fy and @S3xyBerry mentioned, it's a pay to win moment. Downdoot from me.