About welfare and the unemployment rate in SL?

Right after I posted my rant I tried to remove it but apparently didn't. Whatever.. the only reason I put my 2cents in is because I want my opinion known that removing stipends is a bad idea for the survival of SL. But I think LL knows it, and won't do it.

I completely agree that it's more complicated than what it appears on the surface. That's actually my point. I think part of why it's complicated is because it's not RL, and certain RL paradigms don't apply.

Cost of goods is all labor (except for upload fees), there are generally no cost of materials (unless you buy animations or textures). Labor, if I do it myself, is really worth WAY more in US than I'll ever get out of SL. Therefore making things in SL generally has to be a labor of love. Cause it's very unlikely to make a RL living from SL play.

On the stipends: A certain amount of $L needs to be "created" and put into the system to account for the growing community. To really analyze things, you have to consider the Gross National Product (total amount of $L in the system) and also consider the total SL population. There has to be money in circulation and in the hands of consumers. I think that LL is watching this and does what they can to keep the $L at a reasonable value.



I disagree. If there had never been any stipends, there would never be any L in circulation. So at least in the beginnings of SL, there needed to be money 'created' so that there would be money. Now that we're in to it, it's all based on population. The more active users, the more L in circulation you need in order to have a healthy economy.

So stipends actually stimulates the economy, and gives the masses money to buy things. It's easy to say that no stipends would increase the value of L but that's not necessarily true. Has inflation actually happened? Are products more expensive than they used to be? I don't know because I generally don't buy anything but land. I'm still wearing my default skin (because I can't find one that looks hetero and geeky like my RL self). (sidebar - feel free to contact me if you have a skin I might want)

You also shouldn't be so alarmist and worry about a pair of shorts costing 5000L. That wouldn't happen over night, and I don't think that's gonna happen at all. When you can get shorts for free if you look around, and you can make your own pair for $10L and a little bit of photoshop talent. Those two factors will self control the market.

When you said:



What are you basing that on? I don't think that the general concensus of the SL community is represented in the forums. I think a lot of people read but don't post. How many of the 60,000 users have you surveyed?



When did I suggest increasing welfare? Not in my post. All I said was that welfare is the $50L stipend for the basic user. I don't believe that my $500L/wk stipend that I prepaid a year for is welfare because I paid US$ to get that. Whether it's created money or not, the one year account I purchased promised that $500/wk and therefore I will always feel that I purchased it. So the only solution there is for LL to have to buy it off the LindeX, which is a really really bad idea because it would put them out of business.

So if you want a solution to remove stipend: Then go to a model where there are no premium accounts. Honor the current contracts and when they're done, do away with them. Make everyone purhase their first 512sm land tier and make us purchase L on the LindeX. But see, in the long run LL would not make as much money that way. So it should never happen. Cause if LL goes out of business, SL ends and your 200,000L bank account is worth NOTHING.

conclusion: LL needs stipend because it's a sneaky way of selling created $L. They make money when they create money and sell it, in the form of stipend. They need to make money for SL to exist. Again, the point of my original post:

Apropos of nothing, I think the recently advertised PixelSpa skins are pretty nice in all categories. Not my usual one, but I picked some up because, hey, L$250 for a skin ain't bad.

Sorry, I should have been a bit more precise in my previous post. There are two current meanings of "inflation": one is directed to the consumer prices rising; the other is related to having an excess of money supply compared to the size of an economy. I was referring to the latter definition of inflation, which may or not be outdated in some circles (at least, that's what the Wikipedia says, my usual reference when I'm in doubt of things I was taught a decade ago ). Economics, like any other science, evolves and has "trends".

I agree that not all consumer prices rise when you increase the money supply. In RL, for instance, prices of kitchen appliances or computer hardware slowly decline over the years, no matter what the current, measured inflation is. This is simply the result of better technology that allows manufacturers to produce certain items cheaper, independently of labour and parts cost. Overall, when measuring the Consumer Price Index (CPI), you may have inflation as a net sum of all contributions in the CPI, but some items may always be cheaper every time you measure it. The problem with measuring inflation based on CPIs is picking the "right" set of consumer goods, and, of course, if you change that set, the value of inflation may be different.

In SL, to the best of my knowledge, nobody is measuring any sort of CPI. So it's hard to have a precise value of "inflation" connected to the rising prices of consumer goods in SL. The best you can measure is the amount of money in circulation, and the number of transactions done on average by individual residents. That was the type of "inflation" I was referring to. Psychologically, and simply put, if there is no competition, since people have more money available, merchants will be able to offer the same goods and products for a higher price. The problem is measuring if, overall, prices are rising or not.


As everything else in SL, it certainly depends a lot on what kinds of goods and services you provide, and how much you're able to sell. A simple example: talented builders are able to build a whole sim in a month, and market price for that service is around 150-250,000 L$, or, if you wish, around US$ 1,000. In some countries, that would be a pretty good monthly salary (that's slightly below the average salary for EU countries, for instance). You may argue that a talented designer is able to earn much more than that in RL (say, doing web pages) and I certainly agree.

It's not just builders that can make a living from SL. It's more a question of time invested, and expected return. A skin maker may "invest", say, 12 hours of work designing a new skin (instead of doing, say, a logo for a RL customer, or a web site). Let's assume that they charge, in RL, US$50/hour for professional graphical design, so that skin would be an "investment" of US$ 600, or about L$ 150,000 or so. If this designer sells that very same skin for L$ 500, and is able to sell over 300 copies of it, they have made a profit from their work — measured in RL terms, not in SL terms.

The question that arises is, of course: "ah, but most designers are not able to sell so many copies". Think again. Most good designers, with proper marketing, are well able to sell much more than 300 copies of their fantastic designs. So, for them, it's very likely that they can "make a living" simply from SL work.

I'm not even mentioning real estate agents, who definitely make enough in SL to be able to enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle in RL just by, uh, "playing SL" as you say.

Again, you may argue that not everybody is able to do the same. I certainly agree. In RL, it takes 1,000 artists to have 1 good artist (the same applies, for instance, to athletes). Although SL tends to attract a larger proportion of good artists than the usual ratio, still, this would mean that just a few dozen artists would be able to make a living from their work, and it's not unsurprising that you have precisely that happening in SL. Also, talent alone is not enough — you also need excellent marketing techniques. Take Pixel Dolls, NOMINE, or the Midnights (Chip, Mistress, Torrid...) as a few examples of very talented designers' brands that are well able to sell SL clothes enough to give them a comfortable RL lifestyle. Fortunately, they are not isolated exceptions

Concentrating on a market niche, developing an item that is well marketable, defining the highest price that residents are willing to pay for that item, and designing a marketing strategy to do repeated sales on that item so that you get a return of your invested time is not for everybody — thus your statement: "it's highly unlikely to make a RL living from SL" is, actually, very true. No, it's not for everybody. But that's the same as in RL.


You're precisely right. That's what LL is doing and has been doing since the L$ was first established as the currency in SL. The equilibrium is exactly on those issues.


Definitely correct. Stipends, or the "beginning money" you get when joining SL, is what "jumpstarts" the economy. The more people in the economy (and assuming that they are active participants in it), the more L$ LL can "mint". The current levels of stipends reflect the "equilibrium".


There is a law on diminishing returns either way: slightly increasing the stipends may make people spend a bit more, thus being able to afford products that they wouldn't afford previously, still without making prices rise; contrariwise, slightly lowering the stipends may force merchants to offer their wares for slightly lower prices, so that people can afford them, and keep merchants in business. Fine-tuning the equilibrium is precisely what LL is doing. "No stipends" would definitely increase the value of the L$ dramatically, but it would also mean that a large part of the resident population would not be able to afford to buy anything, so, several merchants would simply drop out of business unless a new model of earning money would be implemented. I don't disagree with you on that. However, I also think that reducing the stipends (ie. "welfare" encourages most of the people to become active agents of the economy instead (thus, circulating existing L$ more). For instance, people would start to accept jobs — even low-paying ones — to make up for their loss of "welfare income". Any well-established merchant would certainly be able to offer jobs for L$50 a week, and basic account holders would certainly agree to do them in return of that money, since it meant covering up the loss of income nicely.

The problem, of course, is determining how many jobs could be created to accomodate a "no-stipend" economy. It's just a feeling, but I hardly expect our economy to be able to offer 60,000 jobs from one week to another! As a side example coming from my personal experience, I'm offering jobs and expected more people to apply for them, less than a dozen applied so far. I always wondered if it's the result of having stipends — after all, "having a job" wastes your precious "enjoyment time" (no matter how appealing your job can be) and discourages people from taking those jobs, since it's easier just to hang around and get money dropped from the sky


The answer, of course, is "nobody knows", since you don't have a CPI The only thing that has risen in price are rentals, but the only reason for that is simply the L$ having dropped so much (since the renters have to pay for tier in US$, they have no choice but to rise their prices in L$). Now that the L$ is rising again at the LindeX, I expect prices to drop again. In any case, this phenomenum is strictly tied to the L$/US$ ratio, and not to the amount of L$ in circulation.

On the other hand, if you use the older definition of inflation, then there is certainly more money in circulation, when compared to the number of transactions. This means that money should be circulating more (more transactions) due to the increase in both people and L$. But it is not (it has grown, sure, but not at the same pace). According to the older definition of inflation, there is no question that you can measure it pretty well.

Does this affect prices? Very hard to say, without a CPI. You can only trust your gut feeling. Since you have more and more competition these days, naturally prices tend to drop, and this mostly offsets price rising effects. Also, top-level designers have a much larger customer base than, say, one year ago, so they can keep their prices down and have increased sales as well. The net result is that it looks like the prices are not rising overall.



I'm not an alarmist Extreme examples are just that — examples.


Of course I'm counting the number of people that have voiced their opinion in a few threads, representing about 1% of the SL population, as well as some polls to the effect that have been posted. We're talking about perhaps a few dozens that answered in a universe of a few hundreds that posted. Feel free to calculate the statistical significance of those claims and the margin of error — I haven't done so, but it should be easy to do if you're a statistics expert (I'm definitely not, and I've forgotten almost everything I learned on that area, lol). But I'm wildly guessing that we're talking about 5% of people that would leave with a 95% degree of confidence, assuming that the resident population of SL is statistically well-represented in the forums (most would disagree with that claim).


Although you dismiss your own suggestion, I actually think it's a very good one! I would certainly agree that you should "get what you pay for", ie. if you pay US$ 9,95 per month, you should get "for free" around L$ 2500 per month. That would be a fair balance in the accounting figures

Now, when the bonus stipend is reduced to zero (it should happen in about a week or two), this means that monthly-paying premium accounts get actually a bit less L$ than what they're actually paying for. But that's fine, since they are also subsidizing basic accounts. Under this model, and assuming the (Linden-announced) 1:6 ratio of paying customers vs. basic customers, this means that the "extra" L$ 500 you don't get in Premium goes into the hands of basic accounts - ie. you could pay up to 2 basic account from that. Right now, LL is "stretching" a bit their payments and adding extra L$ to cover for the rest. The solution is to tweak stipends slightly to accomodate. I think that's precisely what LL is doing — earning an average of 5-6,000 L$ due to ratings on Premium (and perhaps half as that on Basic, since the revenue from ratings was quite higher than the base stipend for Basic...) was simply an unworking model that didn't equate with what people were paying in US$...

Still, you're correct — as long as people are, in a sense, "paying for L$" with their account fees, the stipends can be mantained. They just need a bit of tweaking.


I'm not sure I'm following your ideas, replacing premium accounts by buying L$ from LindeX is never a solution for LL, since LL does not earn US$ that way (they only cover their Visa charges). How is this related to "having no stipends"?


I agree with the argument that LL needs to supply L$ into the economy, related to the number of residents — the more residents in SL, the more money has to be created, assuming that all residents are active agents — and that the stipends is the easiest and more logical way to do it in a fair way (there are alternatives, of course, but this one at least benefits all residents).

I'm not actually in favour of getting rid of the stipends. Echoing Philip on this, I think that stipends should be adjusted to balance the economy, which is a quite different thing. The L$ available in the economy should increase if the economy demands it — not if the residents demand it, which is something completely different. If you pour money into the economy, and it's not generating more transactions in the right proportion, something is amiss, and you should balance it out, by taking money away from the economy. That's what LL is doing — nothing radical, just slightly nudging here and there to make sure things work out properly. I imagine that the simple fact of eliminating the bonus stipends will be more than enough to prevent inflation (in the old sense of the word). And I also think that we should set up a CPI some day to be able to watch if prices are rising or falling, instead of wildly speculating on that

peoples argue that the price increase hasnt happened, well its simple to know why:

the linden$ value lower, i should raise my prices

HOWEVER

premium account still get 500L$

thus what should i do? follow the market value or stick to what peoples can afford if i do not consider they buy theyr cash on LindeX

so basically designers are stuck between two values that are linked in SL and not here: inflation and buying power

some feel very proud of not "buying" money well i dont think its the right mindset

theorically basic account that are now free shouldnt get stip, since theyr account is free, they cant make me believe they havent 5$ from time to time to buy a couple of L$

i know its a drop in the bucket the basic example, but its with drops that you make the bucket swell

Just to be clear: My whole rant a few posts back was basically in response to the idea of removing Premium account stipends. Which I think is a bad idea on multiple levels. I also think it's not worth arguing about (why I get sucked in I don't know), because I don't think it will ever happen. BASIC account stipends I could really care less about. If that's what you're calling 'welfare', then do away with it. Could care less. $50L/wk isn't enough to even worry about. But my premium account stipend, I don't believe is welfare because I paid US$ for that $L.. and yes LL does 'create' that $L from thin air to give me each week, but that helps keep them in business. I also believe that when I prepaid $72US for a year, LL agreed to give me that $500L/wk, and it's their contractual obligation to do so..

I also want to say that this is a friendly debate and if my words seem harsh, please don't take it that way.. I just have my opinion.

in responce to your:



which was referencing:



The idea was that there would be no more premium accounts, only a basic account with no stipend. LL would honor the current 1-year contracts (like mine), and after the grandfather period, do away with that type of account after that. But not sign up any new ones now either.

OK.. but with my premium account I get to own 512sm of land, but I own more than that. So I'd have to upgrade my land tier to make up for the additional 512 usage that I was getting as part of my premium account.

Also part of my premium account I get 500L/wk. I would not longer get that, since I would be downgraded to basic account. So I would have to purchase the L on the LindeX.

So theoretically (dependening on the market price of L) it could cost me about the same per month. Cause an additional 512 of land tier would probably cost around 4 or 5 $US, and for another $5US per month I would buy as much L as I could get.

But what I was saying is that the reason it wouldn't work is because Linden Labs would make less money.. Because right now if they get $10 per month for a premium account, they'd only get the $5 and the other $5 would go to whoever sold me the $L. So in a worst case scenario it would cut their revenue in half. AND how many premium accounts would just sell the land to save the $5.

I think you just have to accept the fact that LL needs premium account stipends to generate revenue to keep them alive. Because they are, in simple terms, creating the $L and selling it to us in the form of a premium account. But they NEED to do it to stay alive as a company, and keep this game going. At least right now they do. And I'm totally fine with it.

In you last post you said that my idea of them having to purchase the $L off the LindeX was a good idea.. But it really is a terrible idea from a Real World - Real Life business sense. It would put them out of business, and then I'd be working right now instead of procrastinating via SL. (which is my M.O. these days).

The stipends is a integral part of their business model.


Also.. You said:



Yeah.. I think that guess is way off. It's like with politics... (OK, I'm going to be as vague as I can here to avoid getting into a political discussion - please!) Most of the people I work with in RL who are vocal about their politics have the opposite opinion that I do. So therefore I'm not vocal about it to avoid arguments. So you might then assume that I'm in the strong minority in my state, assuming that I am at work. But then come election time I found out that the state was very ballanced.. only 5% difference between the majority and the minority. SO where are all the people who share my opinion? Keeping quiet maybe, or maybe in a different part of my state, but out there somewhere.

My point is that the forum attracts a certain type of personality which is generally different than the average person who plays SL. And to poll 1% of the forum posters and say that's a ballanced slice of the SL population... I don't think is accurate.

And anyway... even if LL only lost 5% of its premium accounts because of a decision like that. A 5% loss in revenue would not look good on a financial report.

I'm sorry.. I did it again.. I wrote a long-ass post. Ok.. back to work :/

I'm sorry, but i'm totally confused how encouraging ANY type of welfare system can IMPROVE the economy of ANY community (virural or real life). I'm not fond of the current stippend that just hands out money every week and that's more than enough welfare. I would prefer a fairer distribution of funds that would encourage people to be active and "earn" their weekly allowance.

From my observations, people become residents of SL for one of three major reasons (I'm sure there are other reasons as well). Social interaction, the creativity factor or income producing.

Since SL is a community with many opportunities for social interaction, being creative to your heart's desire, and the ability to produce an income, I believe we need to not look at how we can make it easy to live off the dole, but rather encourage a strong work force which will boost the economy. If people have money, they tend to spend it and when it gets spent, that encourages growth... which provides more jobs... more money spent and more growth.

The majority of stipend supporters are of the opinion that they are premium subscribers and, as such, are "entitled" to said stipends. They are mildly interested of the impact said stipends may have on the economy, be it positive or negative.

That's pretty much the gist of their argument.

Does that clear it up a little bit for ya



**Oh, oh...I think he said the "work" word!!

You seem to be forgetting not everyone can sit around infront of their compy's 24/7 to work. As for myself, I've got two hosting jobs and not really having enough to do much with even with hitting places with money balls to augment. And not all of us can always just buy money when we have the urge. So leave the stippends be and stop trying to ruin everyone elses sl experience.

If the real world consisted of basically only three jobs - scripting, building, and dealing in land - then you could talk about SL's economy as if it were anything like rw economy.

It's like if the only jobs available in the real world were clothing designer, architect, and realtor. Or something. Fairly specialized skills, and only about three of them.

Yet you have all these people who want to BE in the world and enjoy what the world has to offer. Telling all of them to go become clothing designers themselves, just so they can buy the things they want, isn't practical.

If you don't give them some money to pay the three worker categories with, they will leave. Because they can't get a job waitressing or being a doctor or a nurse or a day care worker or hundreds of other possibilities in order to pay for the houses, clothes, and other things those three categories provide. Eventually you are gonna be left with only those people who do one of those three things if you don't give money to the people who don't do those three things.

And the world would be much duller. And we wouldn't have anyone to sell our things to.

More people would leave if they came into a game where there was not only nothing productive for them to do, but there was also a very limited way of earning money to buy the things that the game offers. Giving them money each week keeps them coming back each week.

Since this isn't the real world with the myriad job possibilities the real word offers, it doesn't make sense to talk about stipends as if they were welfare or the dole. Might I also add that many people think of SL as "entertainment," and really don't want to learn to do one of three specialized jobs in order to enjoy themselves here.

coco

There are jobs available for everyone who wants on. No talent? In what sense? That you can't script, build, animate, etc?

Well, it doesn't take talent to be a dancer, just attention to the job. And it doesn't take talent to be a host, just a personality.

I'm not trying to ruin ANYone's SL experience. I also never said it should require people to sit in front of a PC 24/7. And yes I did say the word "work" (By the way, I'm not a he ... I'm QUITE female).

What I did was toss a tiny idea, I didn't flush it out because I assumed (quite wrong I agree now) that most people can see that every job falls into one of the three catagories I listed.

Social - Dancers, Hosts, Greeters, People who log on to use "pink and blues" and log off. And I know there are others, but try to do a bit of thinking independently here please.

Creative - Building, scripting anything ... be it for yourself or helping someone else out.

Income producing is more than selling land, it's also having a store or vendor, running a game, offering to teach skills, etc.

My point in the whole matter was that when someone spends time on SL doing these things, it IS working toward making SL a stronger community and these avs should be rewarded on a different scale than an alt acct that sets idle only to be logged on each week to transfer Lindens to a "MAIN" account. Call me crazy, but I just don't think it's quite fair that someone who spends 25 hours online IN SL helping people or doing their bit to improve the quality of SL be tossed the same minimal 50 Lindens as someone else's alt account that does NOTHING except collect the 50 Lindens.

I'm not touching the 500 per week stipend. People pay a fee with the agreement to receive that and it should be honored. Period. No argument.

I'd just like to see a more fair way for people who DESERVE more Lindens to get them. And "WORK" doesn't always have to be a nasty word. In my opinion, anything that causes an improvement from a certain action/attitude/idea implemented IS WORK ... mainly due to the fact that it makes something WORK better.

And before I'm attacked, I have 2 premium accounts and one basic. The basic account is to hold money and items for a specific project so it doesn't get mixed up with the rest of my SL assets.

This most likely isn't going to clear up my opinion, but at least I tried.

Dominee

I don't think you realise that there are a lot of people in SL who would work in a job if they could find one. Unless you personally are going to create a few thousand jobs, then I don't see the solution.

Alexa

If creating jobs was the only issue Alexa, but it's not. SL is an environment that offers a HUGE selection of activities. So many of those activities are FREE. They cost nothing. That's all well and good, but giving everything away for free hurts EVERYONE.

Let me explain:

I visited a really great park last night with a friend. Very clearly a lot of planning and time went into the creation of this park. It's awesome! Now.. my friend and I went there, spent a couple of hours, rode some rides and left. We spent exactly ZERO $L. The owners got dwell from us spending the time there. That's it. There should have been an admission fee, we should have had to pay for the rides (TOTALLY AWESOME RIDES), for any other extras. The place is really worth spending some $L to experience. But they can't charge anyone anything. Why? Because there isn't enough places that cost $L. Too much out there for free. Nobody is going to start paying for something if there are free alternatives.

I don't care how good you make something, if there is a FREE alternative choice.. that is what ppl will choose.

So we have Second Life.. where you are limited only by your imagination and skills. That's wonderful, but

BUT

New people come into the community, find places to go and friends to hang out with and it costs them nothing. I can assure you, they aren't going to LOOK for ways to spend money to enjoy SL if they can do it for free. So people continue to build things in the hopes that they will realize a profit from it. I can think of dozens of things I would LOVE to build, but I can't afford to eat the costs of the tier required for the land

So land barons, clothing designers, gadget builders, casino games owners and ladies of the night will continue to be the primary earners of $L, because those ppl do NOT give that stuff away for FREE.

IF everyone would start charging for things the way they are charged in rl, EVERYONE would make $L, and EVERYONE would need a job. THEN we could have a true economy. The way it is at the moment, only a few are in a position to make $L. That is so sad

OK.. I think you've really answered it there.

The owners of that park got exactly what they wanted to get. They created a wonderful thing, shared it with others, and in the process they got dwell, which if you and a friend were there for a couple of hours.. probably amounted to about $10L.

If they were in it just for the money and charged admission, you might have missed out on that wonderful experience. SL is about exploring and creating and meeting people. Not about having a job, earning money, feeding my family, buying gas for my car, making sure my family has health insurance, etc.

You said.. EVERYONE would need a job. YUK! Who wants that? I already have a job in RL. I tried playing The Sims once and got bored in 2 seconds because I had to mow the lawn, get to a bathroom to pee, take a shower, eat when hungry, it was too much work and not enough fun. It's all a bunch of mindless time-filler to make the game interesting for 10 year olds. Thank GOD that SL is not The Sims. None of us want that!

Anyone who wants to and/or has the talent can get a job in SL. If your stipened isn't enough, there are things you can do to make more L. The "game" is great because it has no goals except the ones you make. And the money system that LL has set up, INLCUDING stipends, dwell, etc. is all working in balance now. The US value of the L is going to fluctuate from time to time based on various factors like New Members, How much L is for sale, LL adding new sims (first land), and things like that. But I think things are moving in a good direction now with the LindeX and LL removing the stipend bonus.

AND, SL does have a true economy.. it's just does not reflect a RL economy because of all the reasons mentioned above in this thread. People who keep asking for more money sinks, to get rid of stipends and dwell, just don't have their heads wrapped around the SL economy, and how it works in relationship to keeping LL a profitable company. You just have to accept that SL is not RL. And therefore the SL economy works on different factors. The RL world economy revolves around many things like OIL, WAR, stuff that doesn't exist (and should never exist) in SL.

if (SL != RL) { llHaveFun(float FOREVER); }


I'm working on a SL game right now.. I'm trying to create a fun place to hang with friends, yes gamble a bit, but mostly CHAT with friends... the stuff that SL is about - for me anyway. And my financial goal? To break even and cover my land tier. If I make a profit I'll expand. I'm in this to have fun.

But if I were only thinking about the money.. there is no way that I can justify SL at all, because I make too much per hour in RL to ever recoup that in SL. Not the way I play. All the hours of coding and building and graphic design.. it has to be all for FUN. I can't justify it as a RL business.

I loved what coco said:

You may have loved what coco said Milkbone, but the fact of the matter is that it doesn't have to be like this...



True, this is not the real world. But the economy IS very real. As such, the same basic economic prinicipals that drive the real world economy can also be applied in SL with similar results. And yes, unfortunately, stipends are one area of SL that can be manipulated to "encourage" a healthy economy.

Furthermore, I think we can all agree that SL is merely in its infancy. In time, like everything else, SL has the potential to evolve into something much more than just a platform offering three specialized jobs. It's only going to happen, however, if it succeeds in attracting talented innovators and creators. This will not happen if the incentive is not there to attract these talented innovators and creators and reward them for their efforts. No one can argue that the potential and promise of financial gain is not a great motivator. Only a healthy economy can bring the potential and promise of financial gain.

It is understood that many people think of SL as "entertainment," and really don't want to "work" to enjoy themselves here. But, "entertainment" alone isn't going to pay the bills and drive this platform forward.

We need to attract and "invest" in talent, keep that talent once we attract it, and then motivate that talent to put forth the effort/work to develop a better SL for all of us.

Finally, I think we can all agree that stipends have their place. But their place should be weighed against what is good for the SL economy going forward. We as a community should understand this basic prinicipal, and accept and compromise when necessary with the understanding that we will all be better off for it in the end.

I feel that even in the Real world everything should be free. We can get Robots and computers to make everything. And computers can be designed to repair themselves.

That's a joke, right?

Yeah.. I just disagree. And after this I'll stop posting about it (in this thread anyway).

OK.. yes I agress it's a real economy. Just based on different things.

"Unfortunately stipends".. that's where you lose me. Stipends are necessary to the welfare of LL, and therefore of SL. And without them, the general SL public would not be buying shoes or land or anything. They'd be bored and logging off.

There are certain principals that drive the real world economy that simply don't apply in SL. Some do apply, but many dont. Because SL is a world that is owned by a company. They can add resources at will (land), which if you try to relate to RL economy really messes up the math. And population changes at a fast rate. Actually who knows what the statistics on ACTIVE populaton is, and turnover rates. And here's a money sink no one ever considers... people getting bored, no longer logging in, accounts ending and the money in the account just vanishes. Which doesn't happen in RL - when people die in RL the money doesn't go away. Oh and another big one, MOST people in SL don't have jobs, don't really care about earning an income, would leave if they had to have a job to play, and would get bored if they didn't have a stipend so they could occasionally go buy a new outfit.

The problem is that you are thinking like an established player with probably a decent bank account, not like a newbie with no money. If SL is ever going to grow into what we all want it to be, we need newbies to stay around. The current economy is doing fine. It works.. and removing stipends or dwell would kill SL.. for the masses anyway.

So yeah, some basic principals apply, like supply and demand. But mostly they don't. Because the SL world is nothing like the RL world. So try to force SL's economy into a RL economy box all you want.. but it's apples and oranges.

Here's one for those Linden Labs employees reading this. All the land I've purchased, which I now pay US$ to LL for in the form of Land Tier.. was purchased with stipend. My wife even signed up another 1 year premium account so that we'd have more stipend and could buy more land. Then I got the bug and bought even more land.. and had to up my land tier.. all that I purchased with my stipend.

Here's the basis of the SL economy: SL is a business, owned by LL who needs to make money. Which I'm totally fine with! It's just some of you guys out there that don't want to see it.

Milkbone, stipends are not necessary to the welfare of LL or SL. Yes, they are nice to have, but not necessary. What is necessary, however, is understanding the concept of the purchase of lindens as an alternate means of obtaining lindens, if and whenever needed.

BTW, I am not advocating the removal of stipends. What I am advocating is giving LL the flexibility to manipulate stipends whenever necessary in order to ensure a healthy economy, whenever necessary. It's not unlike raising taxes in the real world. None of us like them, but we understand it is a necessary evil, so we act responsibly and tolerate them.

Conversely, there may come a time when LL feels it necessary to raise stipends in order to stimulate the economy. This would perhaps have the same effect as the lowering of taxes, or the tax rate, in the real world. This would be a great thing, and I am certain, welcome by all.

It really just boils down to one thing. A healthy economy. Economies fluctuate and different economic strategies must be employed, from time to time, in order to ensure stability and balance.



I think we found something we can agree on

But what it all boils down to is this. On the front page it says that they promise 50L a week to basics and 500L to premium members.

When everyone complained about whether the rating bonus should stay or go everyone in favor of it going kept going back to the fact linden labs made no promises about it. This however is one thing they do infact promise to ALL MEMBERS , and this time its really not fair, nor up to you to judge against.

It's as easy as removing it from the front page, then?

Remember, LL is fully entitled to change its terms and conditions at any time they wish. As posted here before, over two years ago, apparently you got a L$ 3,500 "initial stipend". You don't get that these days — should you complain? (no, because it's not on the front page any more, but I'm sure someone is able to post a copy of LL's homepage in 2003)

Accepting and adapting to change is crucial to survival. Recognizing that SL is all about change is the key to success.

But those against the current stippend arrangement shouldn't be trying to force linden labs to change it in their favor, just because they arent happy with the current market.

The L$3,500 was necessary then because it cost $L for every prim you rezzed...builders would go through their stipends VERY quickly! Very few complaints were probably made then because I imagine people were happy to stop paying to rez prims.

I'm reminded of the line from an Allen Ginsberg poem:

"I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?"

I support this proposed RL feature request. We need more robots.