A rant of questons with no real answer

Because of the upcoming changes Im wondering how many merchants and mall owners will drop thier prices. With only 250$ a week you couldnt even get one dress from some designers and 600$ rent for a mini store at a mall will be crazy. Just a thought about how this change will make the price of basic thing just crazy and how it will effect business should prices remain the same. I think it will be interesting to see how if anything changes on our end or if the poor will just feel the crunch even harder while the rich just laugh as they take in the money on over priced goods. Also does LL plan to lower the cost to upload textures,sounds, and animations to 5$ or will they still be 10$ making it even harder for new creators to get something going. Sorry if this seems harsh but Im poor and as of wednesday im about to be even poorer so Im just a little bitter but I will get over it, maybe. Sorry for the rant but if you would like to add your own pointless question heres the place.

If I might, I would just like to point out that the announcement post said that the changes to stipends were coming in the form of a 50% reduction to the RATINGS BONUS. This means that if you have a premium account, you still get L$500 per week in BASE stipend.

Of course, that doesn't mean a thing if your L$500 total that you were cutting in half is strictly what you get based on ratings bonus.

And of course, I could be wrong about the intent of the announcement, and it's the overall stipend, but if that were the case I don't see why Philip would have specifically said "ratings bonus."

Just a thought.

The lowering of the upload costs is a great idea! I hope they listen.

The rest of the rant was good, too, I am interested in seeing how this all affects rents.

Dallas -

I would expect a slight "lag" in price-changes. Its going to take a week or two for everyone to figure out what kind of money they now get; and how much demand goes down. If you haven't seen any price-changes by the end of January, then you'll know its not working.

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

I'm kind of thankful that people can play for free at all. It's only possible because other people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars a month for fake real estate and other silly thing that put extra money in L$'s pocket.

A sim can support maybe 16 people at once(just a guess) before it starts crimping down on resources, assuming that 16 regular paying people per sim would be profitable, then one person owning a sim can allow them to have fifteen people playing for free and remain profitable. That's just an example, those numbers I'm sure are wrong, but the numbers aren't my point.

People who pay extra for the sake of prestige or because they so drastically need the resource that they find some way to afford it, are making it easier on those who're willing or must make compromises.

So in closing... don't buy L$600 outfits, don't even covet them, just think about what a bunch of idiot jack*@!es are spending ridiculous amounts of money on things that are marginally higher quality, sometimes not even that, than items which sell for L$20 or less. Don't think of yourself as economically disadvantage, think of yourself as an intelligent person that keep things in perspective and has common sense.

ROFL!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

While I am one of those jackasses who has several L$500 suits, I have found that there are several good stores to get men's clothes for under L$50-60.

Search for Lukas Thetan's Webspinning Designs on LeCadre, Thai Greenacre's Complete Man in Grignano and Jonquille Noir's Little Rebel in Gallinas.

Thanks, I am here all week. Try the veal.

Im sure the price drop will happen slowly as the money trickles down. I for the most part think the prices are mostly fair right now but it is based on the current value of the L, which is about a pinch above the value of dirt, so aslong as the market adjust then thats fine. As far as the linden bonus being halfed on Payday I wish I could find what I found before about that it would be nice so if anyone has an offical statment about that it would be cool. But if its towards the 500$ the question remains and if its the ratings that could still mean a drop in income for people that bring in alot of ratrings. It would be nice if event support was a little more then just educatioal stuff like bingo tringo and many other fun community games that help get people to interact. The million parties where everyone stand around for 2 hours while the slowest vote counting in history for who has the best underwear wont be missed by me but differant strocks for differant folks. Its going to be interesting to see how all these changes effect things and while i lean on the side of doom and chaos this could be a good thing

Dallas - here's the quote from the "Monetary Policy" post in the Announcements section of the forum:

+ A 50% reduction in the bonus amounts paid out as weekly 'Stipend Ratings'

...So Base Stipend amounts don't seem to be changing, AFAIK.

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

Cool ty for that. So ratings are basically worthless and charge you up the wazoo. I still think that can cause a price drop because there are alot of people that get 1k a week on payday due to these bonus and thats with tons of rating. So with this loss of bonus income the amount people have will be much lower. While this isnt as bad a base drop it will still cause a shift. Not that this in itself is bad but my fear is that the pricing wont be adjusted fast enough to provent lsugnicicant losess in many business till a new baseline is stabilized. But thats their fault for being greedy lol.

Dallas -

Good thoughts, but I just want to point out one thing:

The ONLY way to "lose money" at a business in SL, is to rent space from someone and not have enough sales to make it up. I pointed out in another thread that there are no "manufacturing costs", "labor costs", or "startup capital" needed to craft items in SL - so its really hard to "lose money", except for renting I think. But this may encourage more land-ownership, which is a GoodThing(tm) in that it'll up demand and also help LL with real-life $$ - which in turn keeps SL up and running for the rest of us!

If you aren't losing money with these changes, you'll really only be "spending slower".

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

PARAGRAPHS!

Please develop and sell some nice products, Dallas, and then see what your opinion of developers are.

I do sell stuff thank you for asking Arctic Sun Creations while still new and under devolopment has done alright. Thank you for making the vendors I use Hiro. Im not taking out of my ass lol. I am not talking so much about losing money as in cost but more as in losing potential profits do to bad marketing in the flucating economy and not changing prices to match. But that being stated here is some overhead if the object you make has textures that need to be uploaded multiple times to get it right assuming you dont get it done right the first time. Same hold true to clothing which can take many attempts to align straps threads countering AV distortion. So if the price to upload said tectures doesnt change and the number of atempts stays at the current level while prizes of the item being sold have dropped you run into cost of production out weighing the cost of the goods. While it wont happen with every object and every thing made it can still happen. BTW im not attacking other people business I am talking about business strategy and making the best of a bad situation by discussing the very topic that has some many peopel in a tizzy with hypothetical questions.

...As the title suggests, I'm glad you - a businessman - ARE discussing this stuff rationally.

Some may nag about your grammar, Dallas - but I'll take that over brainless rants any day!

As far as textures & sounds as "costs of goods" - okay, you have me there. But at L$10 apiece, its still pretty low. You really only have to sell 1 or 2 copies of an item before you've made your money back.

My argument is that "Losing out on potential profits" is not the same as losing actual money. As long as the cashflow is still positive in any way, you're ahead of Joe-Blow who does nothing but sit around in-world and collect a stipend.

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

Sorry for any bad grammer or typos. I am trying to mutli task and somethings are bound to suffer. Im sure no business is going to be ruined and potential is just thats so it really has no value. I feel that everyone in this game has a good understanding about how to do the things they do and we will all do ok. I just like to play devil's advocate at times and its a good way to get other people opinions and a better understanding about how they plan to adjust to the situation. Not to say I am not complaining at all. I have picked a side and I feel the best way to aid my side is to bringup the issues that will effect us all as a community in someway. Some of the things I have addressed may not be cripling or even a factor but even the smallest pebble makes a splash.

Fair enough. I apologize.

But please, paragraphs are your FRIEND.

The real overhead costs for SL business's are land tier costs. I pay $195 a month. My SL sales cover it. That's been the fun for me is to see what I can sustain, and maybe pay for my cable bill and a pizza or two Certainly a lot cheaper than running a real world business, but there are definitely some expenses. Other things might be outside licensing fees (textures, sounds, etc.), costs associated with broadcasting into the world, software, reference material... none of it is necessary to run a business here though, and it's very possible to work your way up to covering those kinds of expenses without ever spending anything but money made from SL. It's still very much a land of opportunity.