Real Estate Bubble, HERE WE GO!

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Nuff Said.
Don't say I didn't warn you.

wtf is the point of this thread flakey???? *hands you a bat to aid club yourself*

Linden's keep shooting themselves in the foot. Once they realize that, they will take the time necessary to reload.

The point is, with an overall reduction in currency of 25% and a reduction in stipend bonuses of 50%, it's going to effect Real Estate prices and Investors negatively as in a possible "Bubble." Land values will go down, and the Investors will be holding the bag.

There's a flip side Blake, it could go another way. Those on now even more worthless basic accounts move to premium accounts with a...wait for it...512m2 land allocation, fuelling land sales. They move to get the bigger stipend which, in effect, means that the impact of halving the bonus may be much less than imagined and also means that suddenly there are more people with spare allocation maybe looking for land. It just takes a shift, it won't happen over night, but it is possible.

i like moopf's thinking

Possible, however; it won't change my status lol.

That's like saying, since stock prices plummeted in early 2000, more people will buy stock because it crashed, however; yes..they may buy more Real Estate once the price goes down, if in fact that is what will happen; Investors will still take a blow.

LOL, no I'm not trying to change your thinking, just offering up another possibility after mulling this over this morning. I'm not sure whether I'm right but I have a sneaky feeling that LL's thought about people now moving from basic to premium because of the stipend change The rest just follows on from that.

Maybe they are just smarter than you because if they've been shooting themselves in the foot, it doesn't actually discribe the growth of SL over the last few years.

If it were to effect me monetarily that much, nothing would change; only me being active. If Linden looks at it that way; they should just do away with a one time $9.95 Fee as they see it isn't benefiting them. If that happens I will quit. lol, unless I make enough money in game to support the monthly fee plus have spending money in game.

Ah you see they won't remove the one time $9.95 lifetime account for a couple of good reasons:

1. It enables players to hibernate their accounts
2. More importantly, it gets people in to play the game, get them hooked, then get them to tier up

The $9.95 is nothing but a loss-leader to get people into the system, get them playing, see what Second Life is about. Sure there are people that this account type suits, a lot of them, but maybe the thinking is that in cutting the bonus on the stipend, people may be inclined to go premium. I can see the thinking, understand it, and appreciate that it's a good move from LL's point of view. They actually have very little to lose by doing this and, potentially, a lot to gain.

Edit: Oh yes, the other benefit, it what I'm musing does actually play out that way is that the cut in bonus on the stipend won't be as drastic overall as the simple figures would suggest. If people move to premium, the losses in the economy from the bonus cut will be soaked up to a certain extent by the new premium account stipends.

Well if that is indeed the case, they might as well have a free month trial bases just like other MMORPG's. The old Bait and Switch you say? I nibble at the bait, but Im not switching unless it is logical by profit. Im certainly not gonna spend my real money buying Linden Dollars on a Virtual Gamble. That's just me. If I had plenty money, it wouldn't matter as much, then again; if I had plenty of real money, I probably would be working 10 to 12 hour days and wouldn't have time to operate a business in SL period.

Of course it's a bait and switch but you're still welcome for ever even if you don't switch - that's the fundamental nice difference between the basic account and a free month's trial. You see you would probably have never been here and certainly wouldn't have stayed if it was only a free month's trial. But it's still a bait and switch as I'm sure LL's account records would show.