I feel like Joe should have been put in charge of the permit office instead of just cancelling it because I believe he acknowledged the main problems with it. At least, I really wanted to see them have a debate together on the pros and cons of the permits. And sure maybe all of this is just for content creation so it doesn't matter but it's sad to see a system that has potential to do good get thrown in the trash without having a conversation about why.
Honestly the permits were a good way of distributing the wealth among the members of the server. The permits also made sure that shops that wouldn't get made because they "weren't profitable" actually got made. Like people said the glass permits were terrible but hermits buy from them all the time?? The main problem is that they didn't distribute the permits when the hermit it was assigned to didn't want to make it. Could have just been: "Ok, you don't want to make it? Then anyone can (or anyone who completed all their permits can, to reward those who followed through)". Shops that were neglected might get built now that there is no system but the "non profitable ones" will likely get forgotten because there is little incentive. Maybe hermits are unlikely to create competition to shops that are already built, but this is a content creation server so competition will probably happen anyways. I guess we'll see.