What is wrong with free money?

*Ponders ways to get Magnum and Chicago to stalk and eliminate each other.*

Not a damn thing, not everyone is rich... not everyone has time or talent to make money in SL... I just gave away 5k at an event, and if anyone thinks thats "wrong" they can kiss my A$$!

Being a newcomer to SL (3 days to be exact) I am still getting use to the inner workings of the game. But I do agree with the free money being cut. Having no knowledge of scripting or customizing an avatar with paintshop, it seems that I will be one of those people that gets by on the meager weekly stipends, which I call it welfare. Well just like in rl, I think some people are too dependent on welfare in SL from what I have seen and read and I am not going to be one of those people. One of the things that has made the world as we know it is creativity(and knowledge) This game wouldn't even be here were it not for the creative knowledgeable minds at LL. Instead of arguing that they shouldn't cut the welfare think of it as an exciting challenge to explore more of your mind and creativity to make another business. I have already started reading scripting guides and am dabbling with the avatar in paintshop because challenges are great. And SL still has possibilities that haven't been explored yet. So instead of being frustrated that the welfare is cut use the power of your mind and creativity to overcome it because where there is a will there is always a way. Knowledge is Power

you are my favorite newbie. i will dedicate my life to finding your duck.

i don't understand why everything has to cost money! why isn't everything free? this is a game. i'm sick and tired of paying more and more money to LL. they are just trying to make money off me! i have to pay a monthly fee just to play and on a little bit of land. this really sucks because i'm a student and sometimes i can't even afford beer for a week. then i realize they are double dipping - first i have to pay for the land, then i have to pay tier. now i have to pay other players just to use their creations? it's one big money scam! i don't know why you are still reading this post. when i first started SL i didn't have to pay anything ever! same as RL. my parents put food on the table. now i have to pay taxes to the government. worst of all i put on weight in undergrad when i quit smoking. and when it's about to rain my right knee hurts ever since i hurt myself in high school. i had to trash my car because the repairs were quoted for more than twice what the car was even worth! the windows leak air so my apartment is always freezing and my gas bill goes so high. AND NOW YOU cUT MY STIPEND!!!???

lmao, Jauani. If it wasnt for the fact I refuse to rate til they're reset, I'd rate you just for that post.

Sleeper Republicans? Hey, I'm mostly democrat and I don't dig the free money thing too much!

It is NOT free money. It is part of the subscription you pay to play SL.
SL is changing the subscription benefits. Get over it, move on, and bitch about something else.

After reading this Chip its official you are definately my Twin, Im just the Cynical ass of the two...LOL

But yes my thoughts exactly on this subject. (( From both posts even))

Shadow

hehehe, no wonder you always sound so wise to me!

You stopped getting sale because people are getting $33 less a week? I really dont think thats your problem. Since the stipend change, my sales have trippled and GOM value increased.

Thank you LL for making the hard work I put into this game worth my while.

This works for women too.

Well..I think alot of the "OMG the economy is doomed!" factor was bullshit. The economy was fine for everyone except those wanting to earn RL $, and even then it wasn't too bad. They just made a little less than the wanted.. People were buying alot, and I was one of them, prices were pretty stable (I shop alot). Would there have been a definite problem in the future? Maybe..maybe not.

As to the basic account vs Premium. The one and only reason to get a premium account, with or without free money, is to buy land. So there will always be basic account holders, whether there is free money or not, and there will always be premium account holders, because people like owning land.

Those accounts are not about how much stripend you recieve.

I sure don't see prices dropping much since the bonus cut, and I do see alot more broke people, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months. Especially with the 6 month duration of our now expensive rates.

Ok lets extrapolate Reality here......

Why not just order pizza and watch a movie? And if your a guy thats married put on the head phones paint or create to avoid the incessant Nagging as getting Laid is not an option anymore...LOL

Yeah and Head phones are great .....Thinks of Depeche Mode's song Silence..hehe

Shadow

PS Sorry for the momentary Hijack reading Ingrid's and Chicagos Post just struck me as funny...LOL

ugh! why be married then!

Sometimes I think MONEY tends to obscure the real core meaning behind SL's (or any) economy. If Linden Labs were to do away with money completely in favor of a barter system, I think Magnum would have a more difficult time making his argument without a touch of shame. Think about it..


Josh works all day on cars because he wants Aimee's clothing.
Aimee works all day on clothing because she wants Josh's cars.
Aimee and Josh trade their goods with each other.
Magnum is mad because he feels he deserves some of those goods.

Aimee spends another day making more clothing because she wants money.
Emma likes Aimee's clothing, but has nothing to trade
So Emma offers to Paypal Aimee a few bucks outside of game for the clothing.
Magnum is mad because he feels he deserves some of that clothing.
Does Magnum feel he deserves some of the money transferred via PayPal? No that's different somehow!


Barter is a cumbersome method of exchanging goods and rewarding effort. Currency is much easier to use, but for some it masks the underlying reality of demand and effort. Thus far Magnum has failed to address how he intends to motivate content creators to continue to make all the wonderful goods he wishes to purchase with his free money.

People have tried to impress upon him that Linden money (or ANY unit of money) by itself is an arbitrary unit without the work that drives it. If you double the amount of money pumped into the system, you halve the money's worth. If you quadruple the money in a system, you quarter its value. If you pump an infinite amount of money into the system, you make it worthless. As money becomes more and more worthless, content creators will rely on it less and less as motivation for work. They will find other ways to be rewarded, even if they resort to barter.

So Magnum, even if your proposals regarding currency are implemented beyond your wildest dreams, all you will be doing is creating a momentary illusion by messing with the numbers. The formula for Effort / Reward will always stay the same no matter what little number appears in your L$ box. You could have 100 million Lindens but if that money is insufficient motivation for content creators, you won't get Josh's car or Aimee's clothes. When this happens your next step will be to advocate a change in the permissions policy such that when Josh makes a car he HAS to give it to you. I hope I don't have to explain how this policy will curb quality content creation in SL.

The alternative to all of this? Perform a service that makes Josh and Aimee want to give you their stuff...or stop asking for their stuff altogether.

There's a problem with this line of thinking though. Aimee's clothing enhances Josh's man boobs. I told Josh to stop shopping at Preen for this reason.

Disclaimer: Josh is a fictional character. I think.

Actually I had Joshua Chaos in mind cause I love his car.
And I *THINK* he likes having man boobs...but I can't confirm that.

Let me get this straight...Aimee wants me to perform a service for her?

The most dastardly one you can imagine.

One thing that baffles me about the whole "money is the root of all evil in SL" mentality is that is fails to take into account that money has ALWAYS been an integral part of SL. It just works by a slightly different mechanism now. Before we switched to the land tier structure and before it was possible to convert L$ to USD and vice versa, money still controlled how much resource you could use, be it land, prims, uploads, or whatever. You had to bust your ass to acquire L$ in order to pay usage taxes on everything you had, and there were a lot fewer options for how to do that than there are now. If you couldn't find a way to make a decent amount of L$ through in-world efforts then you were pretty screwed. Sorry, no land or prims for you. It's so much easier now! People don't have to deal with finding a way to make an income in SL at all if they don't want to. They can just go buy L$ directly, pay for land directly, and so on. The "SL stopped being fun the day GOM opened" thing just makes me shake my head in bafflement. It's amazing how quickly people forget how things used to be and get jaded. Now the content in SL is a hundred times more abundant and of much higher quality than it ever was. Prices for in-world goods and services are about the same as they were in beta (and in many cases lower!) and you don't have to struggle for months to find your niche before you can have land to build on and prims to use. Everything is easier now!! I think some of the most vocal complainers about money, especially those that have been around since beta, seriously need to stop sniffing glue!

That's pretty damn dastardly...are you sure?

It is THE LOVE of money that is the root of all evil. Get it right folks.

I really don't care about the stipend drop.. being a former THERE player, I'm just happy that you get anything a week.. on THERE you either are a successful designer, or you're shit out of luck and better not mind forking over USD.. As far as free money, there's no such thing as free money.. even at events, you're giving time and traffic in return for a chance to get some lindens..

I'm just happy to be alive. Who cares about money? Especially virtual money.

Make the world a happy place, folks.