But at the same time something like play points was necessary for this stability to exist, wasn't it? Either by that or by worse EV across all events, less packs entering the system were necessary for an increase in price, weren't they? (My ecocnomics knowledge is 101-level, so feel free to correct me as needed ;-) )

Well, I am a professor of finance. But that does not mean my opinion is better than yours. It does, however, mean that I find the topic interesting

I listed some ways to increase pack prices without hurting any players in the article above. The best way in my opinion would have been to reduce the redemption fee. That would have increased the value of opening a pack thereby placing a lower limit on pack prices. Increasing pack EV this way would would not decrease the EV of participating in a draft. The current increase in pack prices has decreased draft EV.

So less packs were not needed. Higher EV of opening a pack would have been a solution.

But wasn

That's how I see it too. The redemption price increase was the mistake, the play points as a concept are OK, but the rewards decrease that went with them was not the right way to go about correcting the original mistake.

The online Magic economy must be an interesting medium to study, since it's so fluid and able to react quickly to any environment changes.

So Pete's big number is above 25K again. The list of Cards with a value above $25 is longer than ever.

Is the value of our stuff back up? Or what is the feeling?

Yes some stuff is up. In particular Vintage cards seem to have rebounded a bit. As always when a new set comes out the Standard and Modern formats shake up a little so some of this might also be corrections from said shake ups as the modern staples in particular gain slightly too.

As to redemption, I said when they did it that it was a mistake. To no avail of course and perhaps what WOTC realized is they can't unburn that bridge so they kept trying to build new ones with pps and other "fixes". And naturally with more players joining daily, prices should be rising steadily so a rise is expected anyway. But I still see lowish prices for most Standard staples (probably largely due to redemption and the various panic sell offs were no help either.) The interesting thing is Origins has done remarkably well for a core set with 3 cards that are super pricy compared to the rest and comparable to anything else in standard. (I mean the 2 flip planeswalkers and Hangarback.) Expect the reason for those being high is their Legacy/Vintage and Modern playability. And I expect that isn't accidental. In fact that set was pretty outstanding compared to prior sets and 2015 was no slouch.

My point being they know what they are doing is destructive to the economy so they do it and then do whatever to fix it. Sadly the end result is the rich community that existed before all the various dramatic changes (v2-v3-v4, M2010 rules, M2014 rules, etc) has eroded away little by little until because of the way things have been handled there is no community to speak of and a side effect is a weird economy with lots of good cards no one is buying and then some few that the spikes all want so the prices of that select few are higher than expected. Except in vintage where I honestly never thought to see Black lotus below $150 or Moxen below 30. Now they are adjusting back up (slowly) but I would not remain confident they are going to continue rising. If anything I kind of expect prices to drop again because I expect WOTC do something else to shake things up in Vintage. Maybe VMA2 with power reprints and a glut yet again.

In general though I feel pessimistic right now I would really rather feel optimistic about MTGO's health and well being. Because I have a lot in it that is hard for me to extract without losing value (time, sweat and money all). Some part of me remains hopeful the uptick in Vintage means maybe some of the old garde are coming back and also maybe sometime in the future WOTC will fix things that are seriously broken. Like the Chat default settings and Clans and other community building tools. Because imho that is what will ensure the continued longevity of the game not the influx of players who come and go individually without any sense of loyalty or history.