When I was a new player, my income sources were selling losses, meagre chain payouts if I placed high in a chain, selling beers (600k a day when beers were 6k for one), and flying when points were 50-60k
Nowadays a new player has many more income sources (even if some of them may not be readily apparent to them). Buying gasoline in bits and bobs gets you 100k a day easily. No one needs to follow guides telling you how to refresh as soon as it's a quarter hour tick. You have income from search for cash right away, which gives plenty of items including drugs items that can be sold for decent prices, you can shoplift meds from pharmacy and armor/weapons from big als. The organised crimes actually pay out decent, ranked wars are fun and pay out well. When i was a newbie, wendy and a few others were the only weapons traders because it was a stale market. These days it's a happening place with weapons and armors with many bonuses being sold by players of all ages and activity.
Mercs as an income source didn't really exist in a meaningful way earlier. Its not the best income for new players i guess, but an income for all player types. It needed to be balanced, but still seems to be going strong.
Torn is probably wayyy more accessible than ever before. People focus on points too much when there have been a lot more money sources opened up to players before and since.
I have always been a free to play player and spent most of my Torn life in faction we brought up from low respect focusing on newbies and I never felt buying dp's was ever required to play or be competitive. They're a nice boost, and sure, someone with a 2b bank at the start is going to have an easier time of it, but there's many many ways to bridge the gap, quite easily.
