L$ down to $3.89 USD per 1,000
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Aimee Weber
The one on the right
Join date: 30 Jan 2004
Posts: 4,286
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05-05-2005 10:42
From: Kathmandu Gilman Ye gods.... add some clip art from an old phone book and you have a good broshure from the Church of the Sub-Genuis. Just needs a mention of Bob, slack and the Fist of Removal to be perfect. This guy has more screws lose than a Soviet era Zaporozhets. What really gets me is that Gene Ray is actually allowed to speak at universities! He even did MIT! Then again, who would pass up a chance to listen to him go one for an hour or two 
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Prokofy Neva
Virtualtor
Join date: 28 Sep 2004
Posts: 3,698
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05-05-2005 11:04
Here's what the "for sale" list looks like right now:
Blocks (Amt) Price (Total) Action 5 (5K) $4.00 ($20.00) buy 3 (3K) $4.00 ($12.00) buy 1 (1K) $4.00 ($4.00) buy 20 (20K) $4.01 ($80.20) buy 20 (20K) $4.01 ($80.20) buy 20 (20K) $4.01 ($80.20) buy 20 (20K) $4.01 ($80.20) buy 15 (15K) $4.01 ($60.15) buy 10 (10K) $4.01 ($40.10) buy 10 (10K) $4.01 ($40.10) buy 5 (5K) $4.01 ($20.05) buy 5 (5K) $4.01 ($20.05) buy 1 (1K) $4.01 ($4.01) buy 1 (1K) $4.01 ($4.01) buy 1 (1K) $4.01 ($4.01) buy
When I think of the "rate of the GOM" I think of the rate at which I can cash out with, not the rate I can buy with, but of course it's both. But the cash-out rate is still good at $4.00. It's dropping, it will drop more, but if people are like me, and see it dropping and think "oh, great, I'l buy some cheaper Lindens and buy some marked down land in the mainland old continent" -- then...it won't remain that way for long.
People like Lordfly and Maxx always like to get on here and with their uber world-weary condescending personas tell you what's what and what is "normal" for land, though Lordfly manages his free 4096 and Maxx does too, when he isn't managing his publicked 5k.
I'm just small fry compared to Anshe of course, but I do a little bit more of a brisk business than those two pundits.
I look at what real virtuality is, not what something "thinks" is the "$5-7 average."
Yesterday I sold prime waterfront mature in an established sim area for $9.2. I had bought it for $8.9. I bought some prime mature mountainview for 7.10 -- but I bought in part with my Linden stipend Lindens and saved Lindens which were bought at a lower rate. Well, to be sure, Linden stipend Lindens really have to be valued at $6/month but still...they come unbidded.
Then I waited for the GOM to go up a bit, then sold part of that land for the same 7.10, but for a better GOM rate, just to not be holding on to a lot of land that might get lower in value. PayPal rates stay the same. This is just one tiny little set of transactions, I don't have that many a day much less a week. But look at others who trade in land and you'll no doubt find some very resourced, smart, and savvy people who are buying low on the GOM, selling high, buying low on Purina, reselling even Purina for high, buying liquidated mature prime, reselling for 9.5 and getting it, etc. etc. The market is filled with smart people like that, I see them running around all over the place. Some of them are just individuals who might hold only $25 of tier, but they take that tier and play it up or down to their advantage, trying to move out of Purina into Pristina in the grand SL Monopoly Game. The average "normal" $5-7 is in part a fiction, a wish, a prayer, a median or mean that is on the Linden website, but not the "just in time" price of my sim, which is where anybody will pay the most (multiple that factor by 600).
The Lindens show the mean price for their auction. When will they start showing that figure for in-world sales? Or do they already?
I think the aggregate of their activity, with all its nuances and differentiation, make up a richer world and keep the GOM valued and not too far or too far above $4.
But then we have the Deus Ex Machina in the form of the Lindens. They might screw up the events list or get whipsawed by players griping about Tringo and bork up the "economy" if you can call this fake set of economic relationships in a game an "economy".
When the GOM has dropped before, I'm assuming that if they don't outright go in and purchase higher-priced packets, which I suspect they may do, they will do stuff like cut ratings stipends or cut event events stiping or think up something to charge for.
LIke I'm for them charging for CPU draw by excessive numbers of scripts LOL.
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Rent stalls and walls for $25-$50/week 25-50 prims from Ravenglass Rentals, the mall alternative.
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Chase Rutherford
Oldbie Conspirator
Join date: 6 Sep 2003
Posts: 126
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05-05-2005 11:14
From: Buster Peel I would be very surprised if Linden doesn’t devalue the L$ over time, because as it is, they pay out more via stipends than they take in via subscription fees. I really don’t see how that is sustainable. Why wouldn't that be sustainable? The Lindens pay stipends. Some of that money is sold on GOM. But the Lindens don't pay real money for the stipends. People buying money on GOM are paying real money for the stipends. The Lindens aren't.
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Now only half evil! I've been trying to cut down.
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Red Mars
What?
Join date: 5 Feb 2004
Posts: 469
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05-05-2005 11:32
From: Shadow Weaver Sniff, seeing this thread makes me miss ALBY...sniff. Speaking of which, what happened to him? Get banned?
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Seth Kanahoe
political fugue artist
Join date: 30 Jan 2005
Posts: 1,220
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05-05-2005 11:34
From: Aimee Weber Siggy for a moment there you were starting to sound like my hero Gene Ray talking about this Time Cube http://www.timecube.com/Aimee, thank you, thank you, for posting that url. It's the best thing I've seen in nearly a month. I've wall-papered my office door with it. Now if we could only wall-paper these forum backgrounds with it....
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Prokofy Neva
Virtualtor
Join date: 28 Sep 2004
Posts: 3,698
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05-05-2005 11:36
From: someone But the Lindens don't pay real money for the stipends The Lindens accept a payment of $9.95 per month for a premium account which includes the 512 free land and the $500/week stipends. So the Lindens are willing to accept $9.95 per month for 2000LL (or, if you get the discount, $6.00-plus for the annual subscription). The Lindens are the first ones to exchange their currency in this fashion.
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Rent stalls and walls for $25-$50/week 25-50 prims from Ravenglass Rentals, the mall alternative.
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Jeska Linden
Administrator
Join date: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 2,388
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05-05-2005 11:40
Moved to the "Land and Economy" Forum.
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Vestalia Hadlee
Second Life Resident
Join date: 19 Oct 2004
Posts: 296
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05-05-2005 12:27
From: Buster Peel I would be very surprised if Linden doesn’t devalue the L$ over time, because as it is, they pay out more via stipends than they take in via subscription fees. I really don’t see how that is sustainable From: Shadow Weaver ... LL creates the money they dont take anything away from their incomming revenue. From: Chase Rutherford Why wouldn't that be sustainable? The Lindens pay stipends. Some of that money is sold on GOM. But the Lindens don't pay real money for the stipends. People buying money on GOM are paying real money for the stipends. The Lindens aren't. From: Prokofy Neva The Lindens accept a payment of $9.95 per month for a premium account which includes the 512 free land and the $500/week stipends. So the Lindens are willing to accept $9.95 per month for 2000LL (or, if you get the discount, $6.00-plus for the annual subscription).
The Lindens are the first ones to exchange their currency in this fashion. Correct scenario; backward roles. The residents are the first, and only ones to exchange currency in this fashion: We accept the benefits of an account in exchange for the subscription fee. For us the exchange is giving RL currency for receipt of, among other things, SL currency. We pay something we value to receive something else we value. In this sense, for the Lindens it's not an exchange at all. The Lindens create additional L$ with each new account. As we experience it, it would be an exchange for the Lindens if those new L$ were debited from their books. They receive something they value to create something of no inherent value to them. Part of the ambiguity might be in the word "exchange". For us it means "pay and receive". For the Lindens, it means "receive and create". Shadow and Chase have it right.
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Buster Peel
Spat the dummy.
Join date: 7 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,242
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05-05-2005 14:54
From: Vestalia Hadlee Correct scenario; backward roles. The residents are the first, and only ones to exchange currency in this fashion:
We accept the benefits of an account in exchange for the subscription fee. For us the exchange is giving RL currency for receipt of, among other things, SL currency. We pay something we value to receive something else we value.
In this sense, for the Lindens it's not an exchange at all. The Lindens create additional L$ with each new account. As we experience it, it would be an exchange for the Lindens if those new L$ were debited from their books. They receive something they value to create something of no inherent value to them.
Part of the ambiguity might be in the word "exchange". For us it means "pay and receive". For the Lindens, it means "receive and create". Shadow and Chase have it right. I a bit baffled -- what do you mean "backward roles"? The L$ supply includes all L$ that exist. Even lindens that are listed for sale on GOM exist in an Avatar's account in SL! (When you "Deposit" to GOM, you are really paying an avatar, which continues to own those L$ until GOM sells them to a different avatar.) Therefore Linden "creates" L$ on a weekly basis for all accounts, new and old, by adding to the L$ accounts of all avatars, and L$ are "destroyed" when you pay L$ to upload, buy land from Linden at auction denominated in L$, etc. (So you are correct in that this is not an "exchange".) The L$ that they create in this manner have US$ value, however. You pay them US$, they give you L$. In effect, that's a "purchase". The L$ that they give you are worth more than the US$ that you give them. That cannot be sustained forever. Linden must destroy enough L$ to limit the growth of the L$ supply. Buster
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Torley Linden
Enlightenment!
Join date: 15 Sep 2004
Posts: 16,530
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05-05-2005 14:56
From: Aimee Weber What really gets me is that Gene Ray is actually allowed to speak at universities! He even did MIT! Then again, who would pass up a chance to listen to him go one for an hour or two  I saw him on TechTV (before it merged with G4  )... I wouldn't want to be educated stupid, after all!
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Lianne Marten
Cheese Baron
Join date: 6 May 2004
Posts: 2,192
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05-05-2005 15:37
From: Buster Peel The L$ that they give you are worth more than the US$ that you give them. That cannot be sustained forever. Linden must destroy enough L$ to limit the growth of the L$ supply. But they don't. The amount of Linden dollars in circulation has absolutely no effect on their income. They don't make or lose any money from the selling and buying of Linden dollars. They make money from us paying them to access SL and recieve a section of their CPU resources in the form of virtual land. That's all they make money from. If GOM and IGE and all the other $L for US$ trading services disappeared tomorrow, there wouldn't be much impact on LL at all. You could still buy land for US$ directly from them. The only impact would be on the people who use those services to obtain a profit or those that pay to recieve $L. That LL does limit the growth of the $L supply shows that they care about people's ability to do those things. But the percieved value of the $L has probably no effect on the income of LL. There might be some shift in land ownership as the "barons" leave the game, but LL makes the same amount regardless of whether 1 person owns all the land or 500 people in total own that same amount. And in fact with tier fees as they are, they would make more if more people owned that large amount of land divided up. Anyway i've forgotten what the point was... 
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Vestalia Hadlee
Second Life Resident
Join date: 19 Oct 2004
Posts: 296
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05-05-2005 18:38
From: Buster Peel I a bit baffled -- what do you mean "backward roles"? To Chase's statement that "the Lindens don't pay real money for the stipends", Prokofy answers "the Lindens are the first ones to exchange currency in this fashion", and cites Linden willingness to accept $9.95 per month for 2000L$. I would contend he confuses, or got backwards, the roles played by the residents and the Lindens in this transaction. The transaction he describes is an exchange of assets, each with discernable real value: L$ for USD. For subscribers that is so -- we can view the L$ as an asset because amongst ourselves the L$ has redeemable monetary value outside of the game. For the Lindens, it's a different matter. L$s for them are not an asset, but rather a fictional currency with no intrinsic value -- or so says the TOS. Their role in the transaction is not an exchange of currencies with equivalent real value. The answer to Chase confuses the role of the Lindens in the transaction -- who exchange no assets for USD -- with the role of subscribers, who pay USD in exchange for an asset redeemable in USD. The equation of subscription money and stipends is not a matter of Linden willingness to accept USD for L$; it's that the residents are willing to accept L$ for USD.
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