There is also a third option, quit the game.
Seriously though, earning money is not usually so boring in most games. It does not have to be. However the problem is that pokemon fire red/ emerald is not designed to be a mmo. Additionally I believe the slow updates are because the devs are afraid that Nintendo will order the axe, so they do not focus on this game as much as they could. We need to give them slack for them, I really appreciate the game when I play it, also Nintendo designs these games so there is little post game so that people will buy the next round of games when they are released.
There are usually ways to earn money in numerous ways, however there are only a couple methods to earning money 1. Farm islands 2. Payday wilds. One major way we could improve the flow of money is by adding in game player owned shops to allow merchants to exist. There would be less cost of human time in making sales ( Making fourm posts, spamming trade chat, logging in to make trades) so people could price it lower, and if people could open shops in game more people will purchase mons/items because of the convenience of locating/purchasing (fourms are messy, and most people don't come here).
Alternative ways to change the stagnating economy are
Introduce items that casuals would be interested in buying from other players (example; fashion items, dyes, furniture, different color pokeballs, those pokeball explosion things that were in diamond/pearl/plat). This would take money from shiny traders and casual players back into the economy.
More tournaments
Add quests into the game (example kill ten beedrills) that give money/braces as rewards
Increase money gotten from trainers, or reduce costs of brace
Encourage more players to stay active by adding daily rewards. More people playing= more money flowing, and daily rewards would give some life support to those in poverty.
Let us re challenge gym leaders who have hard teams for money
Give teams a use by giving them a guild discount for buying items. Maybe have them fill requirements needed for benefits or buy them.
These are just some ideas off the top of my head, any other alternatives would be appreciated. For some reason the mods do not appreciate our ideas so far, so lets brain storm some new ways to save the game.
One of the problems really is that there is nothing to do after beating the elite four besides raising a competitive team, and because of that breeding has become a grind. Players are quitting because of the fact there is not much to do and then there is less money being spent, causing it to become even more of a grind. For example I quit a few years ago because I got bored from lack of things to do, only reason I came back was because of emerald being introduced.
+Also another reason why people are suggesting that more money be gained from trainers/ farming made easier/ breeding costs be reduced is because the economy is fairly self contained. Barely any money leaves one player and travels to another, its basically single player in this aspect. Most money that is earned is spent on purchasing items from npcs, so there is little reason to worry about how much money other players have. There are no legendary weapons like in maplestory or wow that only a few people can have. The high costs of breeding are just stopping casuals and new players from participating in the only end game of tournaments.