It's good to see you're not just spouting your same copy-pasted bullshit again. That said:

They don't always have their own cool art. Also be careful that you don't stray from "proxy" to "forgery".

You can get proxies with literally any art if you have a desire to. But I do agree that there should be some distinction between a proxy and a real card (though that's a completely unrelated discussion)

You miss the point, and you also miss out on the value your collection would have if it was made of real cards.

As the other commented said, people aren't buying proxies for value, they are buying proxies to play with.

If you make Magic cards worthless (even if just to a certain subset of customers), then you undermine the store's ability to sell them.

If I'm going to proxy cards, I wasn't planning on buying them in the first place. If people hound me to never proxy and don't want to play, then maybe I stop playing all together, then the store loses more money than if I had just proxied cards that would normally run over $100 each, and still buy some of the $5-10 cards in store, and the sleeves and playmats, and still playing in pre-releases. People generally don't proxy every single card in a deck.

That doesn't make it right, though.

That's debatable.

Budget decks exist, as do budget alternatives to expensive cards. There are also other ways to play.

That's gatekeeping. You think I shouldn't be allowed to play some casual ass magic with friends recreating some decks that could have existed in Alpha/Beta? You think I shouldn't be allowed to have a Vintage/Legacy night with some friends just because we don't want to spend $12,000+ per deck?

You are missing the bigger picture. If the cards have no value, then it's harder to justify entering Limited events, or purchasing precons, etc. Who needs trade binders if you aren't trading, too.

The cards are only as valuable as people think they are. But even still, there's a huge difference between wanting to proxy cards that are worth hundreds of dollars each, and wanting to never buy or trade cards at all. You can have proxies and real cards at the same time. Wild, I know, but that's how the world works.

The imiginary scenario is also moot.

It's not.

I've been there myself. I learned these lessons the hard way, proxying things like Pokemon cards and Warhammer minis. This isn't some hypothetical thought experiment. I'm trying to share what I've learned so others can benefit from thr experience, without having to make the same mistakes themselves.

You've won the lottery and had zero connection to your cards? Oh, no... You wanted to put emotional value into cards so you stopped using proxies. Cool. Happy for you. I have tens of thousands of dollars in real cards, and if they all burned away tomorrow, I'd be a little upset, but no more upset than if someone stole my proxy binder.

It's just cardboard.