20-year vet. I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. Runelite has greatly lowered the bar for bot makers. Client injection and computer vision would've only taken them so far. I personally don't see a way out for Jagex. They could take back the reins, but at this point, the carriage is irreparably damaged. How do you combat a botting community that grew with your product? How do you combat literal decades of suicide account creation? I've known botters who said their accounts average less than an hour of play outside of tutorial island. They just maintain a list of thousands of accounts. Multiboxing bots that complete the stronghold of security and suicide in the wildy with eachother.
I know this is a little rambly, but obviously RS is a big part of my life. No matter what jagex does at this point, botters will have an answer. Not to say jagex shouldnt try. It just feels like a lost battle at this point. To a degree, I think bots in a declining community provide some value. RS3 inflation of the raw material space makes this self evident. Normal Logs passed 1k ea. Obscene and inexcusable.