Unskilled jobs? Pay volunteers first.

We are talking at cross purposes. You are talking about investing in something and doing more work (with a huge assumption AND risk that you can market and sell some RL art). I am talking about taking a few minutes of your time and using the fruits of the labor you have already engaged it to get $L.

The market for $L is cheap if what we are discussing is the people in SL (who don't want to work in SL) getting some spending money equivalent to what an unskilled job would provide them.

The point, however, is that it doesn't stop at "getting L$". If you're asking people to sell US$ for L$ and then buy, then what you're really doing is selling the in-game stuff that folks buy, for US$. And that means they're competing with real world objects, and that may not be a favourable comparison. Yes, you can get some L$ for less than the price of a cup of coffee, but would you pay so much for that cup of coffee if you know that the barista could sell the exact same cup of coffee to a thousand other people without ever buying more coffee or cups or even taking time to pour them out?



That depends. I wouldn't assume that all these people don't want to work in SL. Many of them might love to work in SL but can't because they aren't skilled enough to make the cut or the market is saturated in the area they're interested in.

Awwws.

I checked what Jeska had to say about this, and because of the popularity of Help Island, there's a longer queue of Volunteer applications. Which I think is absolutely fab too.

I'll have to bide my time patiently!

Hey, I didn't say some of us don't hit the asshole button on occasion when we have raging PMS....

(I still think highly of you, Ingrid, irregardless of your opinion of me )

I would have to concur with this assessment.

Correct, buy inworld things for US$. Easy. Transactions are in discretionary spending values and major economic analysis is not needed for people to bother laying down $10 for $L.




I would argue that if you made money in SL and did not exchange for US$, than using the $L to buy your virtual coffee would amount to the same thing in terms of the value of the transaction. How you got the $L is not material as to whether the virtual coffee is worth anything.




I don't assume none of them want to work, but I (as a paying customer) do not want to subisdize those who aren't imaginitive enough to find a way to make some $L other than having it given to them. Nobody needs the $L.

I see I really don't have to work very hard baiting my Enabran traps, do I! I can ALWAYS count on you.

coco

How is that a problem? So we have a clean record we don't deserve to get any compenstation unless those who have disqualified themselves for it get it too?

HUH?!

dang it Usagi beats me out alreay.. I'd only make 3rd place

That is the best and most on topic suggestion I've seen yet.

And this is a problem, why?

When I was at college, I was a member of the computer club and a volunteer. For that work I got an account on the Engineering department's computer with a 100K quota (that's "K", not "M". I could have got up to 600K with a bit more work. At the time a paid account got you 300K and on a slower machine, for about 20 bucks a month. In 1979 dollars.

Not everyone could be a volunteer.

It wasn't a problem then, why would it be a problem now?

Their volunteer land could be on a sim or in an area reserved for volunteers, so they couldn't sell it except to another volunteer, like our computer club accounts were on a machine that normal users couldn't use so we couldn't barter time and storage for a profit.

Since that's the whole point of the "Linden economy", and LindeX, and other exchanges... to sell stuff in-game for real money... why are you making that sound like a problem?

If it's not then the Linden will drop in value against the US$.
Given that Microsoft sells Windows for US$200 and gets to sell the same OS to millions of people without ever writing a new OS for each customer, and given that I'd MUCH rather buy a cup of coffee or a giant robot AV than a copy of Windows if I didn't actually have to (in fact the only thing my Windows box does is run SL) I'd say I value that L$800 giant robot at a reasonable chunk of the L$100,000+ my Windows box cost me... it's easily worth the price of that cuppa...
The world is full of "cool jobs" that you can't get because the market is saturated. SL isn't some magic fairyland where economics doesn't apply. In fact a big point of SL is to NOT be a magic fairyland where economics doesn't apply.

Even I only get to do one at a time, and I started out only done one. The multiple body disorder came later. So, if I can only do one of those things for a while... I'm getting to do that thing... and your poor free riders can do the same.

Sure. Hie thee to the nearest Sandbox and hang out with the creators.

If the bonus is more than the Lindens you paid to rate, that's weird. Is this something that happened before they started charging Lindens for rating? Or was there some loophole still there after that? Because charging for a rating had already happened BEFORE they killed the rating bonus, and that should have prevented this kind of game.

You missed the point where they used to only cost $1L a piece therefore for a 3 banger rating it was only $3L. The grid was awash with rate parties.

The fact that a free rider's presence is worth as much as a paying customer is a problem. Money chairs are the symptom... if you can make as much dwell by getting 30 cheaply-bribed free-riders in your club as by having 30 paying customers who aren't going to think of L$50 for an hour locked on a dance ball as a good idea, what are you going to create?

In RL, just having free riders in your attraction is DEFINITELY not worth as much as having the middle class there. If it was there wouldn't be any symphony orchestras among all the icehouses.

No, I didn't miss that.

It was already more than the bonus when I got on, but the bonus was still there.

Ahh I see, the bonus was whacked down though also when they raised the price of ratings to $25L a pop. The $1L rating game was very very prosperous for alot of unscrupulous people at the time. I can't remember how the formula worked but the rating bonus was quite lavish.

Why did they "correct" it twice?

First, by charging enough for the ratings to make this unprofitable.

Then, by killing the ratings bonus altogether.

When you come right down to it, pretty much everything in SL is there to provide happy feelings. You can't take anything you buy in SL and turn it into something you can use in RL.

It wasn't lavish when I got here.

But it WAS there.

It isn't now.

And it DID serve a useful purpose.

We will look for you

Is the giant robot avatar as useful as the Windows box? I doubt it. And MS have to pay duplication costs and transport to get that Windows onto the shelves..



Yes, but in RL a) there are other jobs other than the cool ones, b) you aren't routinely told that you should never be doing a non-cool job ("if you're doing it for money you're doing it wrong), and c) if SL is no better than RL why participate?

No, those are the people who can create, which are not necessarily all of those who just enjoy creating.