You WILL be undercut. It will be significantly harder to break even and/or make money. But, provided you make a solid effort to do so, you will come out ahead, it will just take longer.
Seems like patience will be the key and not to expect fast results.
I just don't want to buy gil (like everyone seems to be openly doing these days) or gear a job I don't want to play only to get pigeonholed into it and not play the job I want to play.