I mean, do you know anyone who bought all tcgs or at least a handful? Cause everyone I know got them for gold, I play in eu and got them with gold, virus here got them with gold, I know another 3 serious collectors who got all of them with gold, then another 3 people who got a handful only but again with gold, I know 1 who bought 1 with money but 5-6 with gold, so that’s still the majority.
The thing is, once you have (or had, since that’s majority of cases) more gold than you can spend, and that’s not unrealistic since gold is easier to come by than money are in the real world, you start wondering: I got all the mounts from vendors, what else can I use the gold for? That’s when the tcg hunting starts.