It's not about making a living, it's about paying so you can show you're better than people - which is a huge cultural portion of gaming in Asia. Pay2Win is seen as a means of showing off your wealth and status, and isn't nearly as frowned upon over there. My point is about the ability to pay for power directly through in-game means, which is a staple in Asian MMOs (Blade n Soul, BDO, Lost Ark, etc). Additionally, my main point of why China losing WoW will have virtually no impact on EQ's population is because mobile gaming accounts for about an 80% market share for all gaming in China (
https://www.statista.com/topics/4642/gaming-in-china/#dossierKeyfigures)
Possible incentive for the Real World money making though...Plat/Krono/Named hogging/Char selling. Its easy cash for some lonely bored souls. Could bring some back to servers and impact things.
IDK, I see the same accounts on ECT not selling for months at a time. Powerleveling can be lucrative, but it's a one and done transaction. Recurring RMT (e.g. selling clear runs, selling dungeon carries, raid clears, mount drops, etc, is way more $$$ than a 10 dollar krono). As an example, my FF14 group used to sell ultimate raid clears for $1000 a run, and we would pilot 8 characters. So ~8 grand for about 20 minutes of work.