SL Monetary Policy and upcoming changes

Maybe you would like it the other way around? LL increases stipend payouts and event cashflow. Then a few months down the road, everybody has L$1,000,000 in the pockets and L$ is a dime a dozen in SL. Effectively ruining the game because of MudFlation.

Alby, I think he likes it in the middle ground. Not changing it for now and coming up with a better solution.

Actually, I think that if they are going to stop paying any money back for contest and fun events, other than educational, that dwell payments should be rafdically increased. There should be some reward system for providing entertainment to other SL residence, or for building something truly worthwhile.

I believe that everybody's objection is that it's taking the wrong means to correct a real problem. It's reducing the inflow of money without actually forcing an increase in sinks. People who are already "set" basically have no need to make use of any sink actions, and can just sit back and make more and more money. Whereas people who are starting out or tryign to get situated are hitting the sinks much more often.

The current "taxes" in SL favor the rich already. It costs a lot into sinks to get set up, but once you are situated, you can just sit back and watch the cash flow. Now, they are reducing the income of the poor without reducing the income of the rich except in the "trickle up" means. There is nothing going trickle-down here at all.

In order for an economy to work, money has to make a full circle. Gates buys a meal at McD's, McD Employee gets money, McD Employee buys Windows, gates gets money, gates buys a meal at McD's... It needs to go around like that.

Unfortunately, there is very little "Trickle Down" in SL. The rich don't "Lose" any money to pay poorer people, and usually don't pay any poorer people at all in fact. Unless they made an artificla "Trickle Down" system, the economy is pretty much shot.

So, what people are saying is that this change will increase the economic divide. The rich will stay rich and get richer, albeit at a slower rate. The poor will get poorer, and get poorer faster.

ROFLMBO!!!!

I came from THERE and they did this in THERE just before THERE DIED. They are going to sign their own death warrnt. Some ppl like me who are not designers or builder, their only income or hope for income is allowanc and event pay and prizes. And Newbies are already poor as church mice, if not for the generosity of ppl giveing stuff they would not have as much fun and then the promicce of allowance till they can become more acclumated. i do not think ppl will be as generouse now.


hmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think it is a HUGE mistake.

If LL want a financial depression in SL, with these changes they will get one.

Do they really think people only play SL to go to educational events? The reduction in event support will see a drastic decline in people going to clubs and if the owners aren't getting the dwell which goes some way to paying for the club, they will close down and tier down.

Reduction in stipend - newbies need the stipend until they find their niche to create and sell items, as do those on a basic account. But what will be the point if no-one has money to buy clothes or houses or textures. Current creators will see their profits plummet - what inducement will there be for anyone to make anything?

What I find interesting is that those who buy and sell land in vast quantities for huge profits are untouched by these changes. Except of course, people will be buying less land and expect to pay lower prices due to the reduction in their stipends.

I paid for a year up front but that doesn't mean I won't cut and run if things get too grim.

Alexa

Kat's predictions:

You will see a graet outcry from the unwashed masses as they suddenly realize they have no source for extra income. no events to attend etc.

Everyone will stop spending money because there has been this great disruption in the force, at least in the short term.

Unless LL provides some way of allowing new players to earn more money, it will take them so long to get enough money to be able to buy anything, they wil become discouraged and stop playing.

Panhandling will increase 100 fold

Prices for ingame mechandise will not decrease significantly as most sell their items well below thier worth in real dollars as it is. Some people have hundreds and hundreds of hours invested in creating items yet probably have made less than a week's wages at minumum wage as it is. What is the point of investing a lot of time and energy making something to sell that few can afford or sell it for nothing.

You have all the ingredients for making the great depression all over again. No money for the poor and the rich afraid to spend.

What clubs remain will be forced to charge cover in order to have prizes. I haven't been to an event or club yet I'd be willing to pay to get in... except Dark Life which got old real quick.

There will be a significant rise in the number of escorts.

No one will rate anymore except negatively, what's the point?


A driving dynamic force in the economy is being removed. Not gradually, not subtly or for any really good reason other than some vague spreadsheet voodoo. Lemme make it simple for ya. Why do people go to events? To try to win money, don't believe me? Go to a club 10 minutes after the last prize is given out and it will be empty. Now, weather that is good or bad is irrelevent, it is how the system works. Now, why do people spend money on clothes and costumes here in SL? To wear at clubs and try to win contests usually. If it weren't for my girl friend's desire to go clubbing I would still be wearing the shirt and jeans I got as a freebee soon after joining SL. Because of clubs I have probably spent $3000 L on clothing and likely made 3X that much back due to contest winnings and stipend delta from ratings. My GF has likely spent $!0,000L on clothes and dance animations. Now that dynamic is gone, you figure it out.

This going to have a lot of unforseen consequences, one can only hope the positives outweigh the negatives.

This is really really going to piss off my girlfriend since she loves clubbing here in SL. This has already come true so it isn't a prediction.

/predictions

Wouldn't it be better to take money from those who can afford it rather than removing income sources? A trash tax for instance, you leave an item in the trash for more than 3 days you pay a tax or a land transfere fee when you buy land. Someone sells their first land lot, LL gets a third. Lots of ways to decrease the money supply without disrupting the system.

Then again I'm an idiot so what do I know?

Seems there's a lot of controversy over the new policy

Myself, I'm not entirely convinced this is a bad idea, but I'm not entirely sure this is the best idea either. There are several things which I'd like to say, but I'll try to keep this short.

There seems to be the idea that the SL economy needs more drains. Money comes in via stipends & events, it has to go out somewhere, or we have inflation. Right now, LL is choosing to decrease the incoming events.

I have an another idea, which I think the players will love, but LL will hate. The reason that there's no money sinks, is because we need more things to spend our money on. ie. Land and tiering.

If new economic policy would be:
1) Auction land off only in L$ instead of US$
2) Let us pay for tiering costs with L$ (that ridiculous L$ tiering thing doesn't count)

We would have plenty of drains on the economy.

As cool as they sound for us, then LL has literally 0 US$ as income and goes bankrupt

Not at all. Some people will pay tiering in US$, some people will pay in L$. There's also the maintenance fees, and premium account fees.

If this can become a true free-market economy, it might work

Of course, it's just a rough idea. Even increasing the # of L$ auctions will make a difference.

Key word: Some.

Right now: All.

Some < All.

US$ from Some < US$ from All.

Hence, I doubt LL will take a major pay cut

After trying to formulate my thoughts and re-writing, modifying, erasing, etc. all I have to say is......

DAMN I PICKED A GOOD WEEK TO FINALLY START PLAYING WORLD OF WARCRAFT!

Goodnight SL

I TOTALLY agree with this. Thank you LL!! *Backing Alby up here 100%*

If stipend goes down, items for sale in world should adjust to reflect these changes. What a bunch of cry babys

Okay, if that's the case, why do it?
Why have the system shock in the meantime?
All it does it make people who already have money have their money increase in value. How is that fair?

And considering how expansive this change is, don't you think we should be given more than 2 days to consider and discuss and test this?

And than; Who says the prices will drop in SL????
When we got into 1.2, with 500 to spend, and not 1000, i did not see so much of prices going down, why should that happen now, if people can buy at gom or ige....

In 1.2, I could count the number of dots on the map any time of day.

We have a much more complex system of people and business with a much larger network of consumers. The volatility is much higher and much more sensitive to change

Think of this... people can pay $9.95 for the ability to log in and use bandwidth that LL pays for for as long as SL lives. On top of that they're given a couple of real world dollers every week they log in. In a few months they've made their lifetime fee back. Every week thereafter they're actually making money. In that light it's very hard to see this as greedy or stingy on LL's part.

How about a redistribution of wealth? A progressive income tax? Anyone making over X amount of Lindens per week pays a percentage in tax, percentage progressive and based upon the income. Anybody making less than X amount of Lindens per week gets paid extra stipend based upon retro-progressive percentage of taxes collected that week. Percentages balanced properly to preserve incentives for production, but also ability of the "poor" to consume and help prop up the economy.

Consider that while I run for the hills and hide.

hehe, I suggested something similar in another thread No need to run for the hills.

I find it odd Philip that you skipped the part about ratings being 25L$ per point now and the fact that the top picks will be decided by the real US$ winning bid on Ebay.

An income tax would make things MUCH worse.

Keynes was wrong, folks. The US economy is slowly dying proof.

LL has done the right thing here, given the situation. More than most of you even realize.

There will be short term pain for a lot of players, yes - including me. I will be objectively poorer in the short term because of this.

But the alternatives would be much worse. Worst of all would be creeping rampant inflation, that erodes the society from within.

In the long run, the social and economic structure will become much much stronger because of these changes.

It seems to me that all Linden Labs is doing is listening to the very Vocal minority. I bet if Linden Labs were to poll people they would say they DO NOT want their bonuses cut in half.

Well we're damn vocal tonight