I completely disagree (on a phone so this will be short) xD
I started Marapets nearly 9 months ago and when I started there were so many friendly people to help me about and after only 9 months I'm racing someone to 1 billion MP!
I feel that Marapets just depends on how much dedication you decide to put into it. I started in the summer so I restocked most of the day but now it's the school year so I can't be on as much.
Other than restocking there's games, quests, missions, auction sniping, and usually the most profitable, reselling.
I've been able to do this without buying a single AU. Those who do buy AU though help drive the economy here. Everybody wants AU because it can help in a lot of things like dailies, missions, pets, collections, etc.