Would you still use SL if there wasn't an option to cash out?

I cash out L$ every week or two. If I couldn't cash out, I'd stop most of my sim building and texture making work. It wouldn't be worth the time and effort spent on new development. And if I kept working as hard as I do now, I'd rapidly be so burried in L$ that they would become meaningless, as I couldn't possibly spend them fast enough to keep up.

If I couldn't at least use the L$ that I earn to pay my private sim owner for my land maintenance fees, and they in turn to use those L$ to pay for their tier on the sim to LL, I am quite sure my sim would collapse and fail, and I would cease owning land at all. My ability to cash out L$ is the only reason I can afford to own land in SL.

If I played SL at all with no ability to cash out, it would only be as a small-scale land renter (renting just enough space in a private sim to have a skybox bedroom), and strictly for social purposes. Which would eliminate about 90% of my time spent in SL.

My point is that whether or not you ever cash out, if you buy from anyone who does, or rent from anyone who does (and so forth in a web of connections), your L is still connected to an economy that can be valued in real money. So, you are still running afoul of the gambling laws if your L can be traded by ANYONE, in this web of interactions, for real money.

Think of all the work done in SL by people who are making a RL living on it, and all the builds in SL supported by people who cash out L to pay tier, but are not making enough to make a living on it. All those builds and sims would be GONE without cashout, especially the ones related to RL companies or groups.

The problem with free account holders is that they don't understand that most of the things they see in SL were paid for by people who spend money in SL, but don't make any money in SL. Repeat, MOST people spending money in SL are not making money in SL.

Then the people with the free accounts complain because those of us who are spenders, aren't buying the things that these gamers enjoy. Damn straight we aren't. We are, in many cases, either buying things that will be used for RL purpose (such as when I buy furniture to be used by my support group), or for a roleplay purpose of no interest to the complainer (such as when I pay rent for building on a Gorean sim).

It's sort of like tagging along to the movies with someone who's paying, and then complaining becuase the paying people voted to see something the non-paying people don't like.

Do you get it now?

The L$ isn't that important really.

Even if Linden Lab were to totally scrap the L$ then people would still find alternative methods of payment.

A lot of the leading content creators carry out commissioned work and don't rely on the L$ and are payed via paypal, check or sexual favors. Also, if the L$ were to go then I would expect sites like SLExchange would allow people to make purchases using PayPal.

So it wouldn't be the end of the world. The L$ just makes the small in-world payments easier.

I would be here but not as much as 90% of my time in SL is devoted to the running of my shop. And the running of my shop to the extend that I do is only worth it if I am making money off of it. I sell Lindens every few days and cash out several times a month.

As a clothing creator I dont buy other peoples clothing anymore. The only reason I needed $L earlier on was to clothe myself in different apparel. At that time I was not concerned with money, I was here for fun and spent a few hundred a month on Linden dollars so I could pay for my rental home and items.

Now, its a totally different story and since I can create pretty much whatever I need, I will never go back to the old days. Since I have a shop that brings in the lindens I have no need to buy $L with my RL money, and if I could not cash out I would have no need for SL money. It would result in me signing in less and less and less.

Battlefield 2 > Point of Existance mod RAWKS!!!!

Brenda, what? Maybe there's a terminology issue here: isn't a "free account holder" just someone who is not Premium (does not pay for their account). Unless you are looking to buy mainland, there is no reason to be Premium. Not even if you want to be a good citizen, really ... premium membership fees are a small part of LL's revenue stream.

But a huge percentage of free account holders have payment info on file. Tho I wouldn't even have that if there weren't some sims that require it for access ... I buy lindens via SLX.

I believe that the bulk of expenditure in SL is actually done by free account holders.

I don't know about the complaining to which you refer. So far as I can tell, free account holders behave exactly the same as Premium account holders. They create content, own land, etc..

Wrt to the OP topic, the number of people who make RL incomes in SL is very small, so you are surveying a very small group --- the few people who make real incomes and also read the forums. Personally, I would still be here because for me it's primarily a social game, and any L$ I make I just plow back. I think that will remain the case for at least a few more months. I could see boredom setting in at some point, and since I don't make any sort of RL income in SL, I would just leave.

Wow, I'm exactly the opposite. As a clothing creator I get so flippin sick of my own stuff that I spend oodles on other people's stuff.

I voted no on this because if I couldn't cash out, I couldn't pay tier. Pretty simple for me.

Thats a good Idea, you could call it a Basic account and need to be premium to cash out or to own land.

BTW I have a full year Preimium account and own land so for $72.00USD a year they pay me to play, - well.... tier fees excluded

I don't know if Linden Labs was just a hosting company they wouldn't have fake money and would only be selling server space and only be in charge with maintaining servers, maintaining some essential services like protecting its customers from fraud, virus, grid shut down.
There could still be money transactions but it would be real dollars not fake one's and LL would have nothing to do with it..
But I doubt this would happen LL would lose resources from losing control over fake money and our non-existant economy.
At this point lucky few get to earn anything and LL takes the biggest cut. Majority of residents I bet don't earn enough to cash out or even put money in. If you're so talented that you can make anything here why not just accept cash only from paypal and get rid of the middleman?

If theres no way to cash out - there will be no way to cash in, either.

I used to make objects and walls and floors for the original "The Sims" - for free. I did learn a lot from that: how to make textures, using Alphas, basic intra-object interaction, how to create html to make my web site, and a bunch of other stuff.

But, after a few years of doing that, I felt like it just wasn't getting me anywhere. Sure, seeing the download counts on my stuff was gratifying in a sense, but it was an empty gratification.

When I heard about SL I decided to check it out. When I found out you could actually get something in return for time and effort put into a project - even though its only pocket change, I felt like I may actually be able to get something real in return.

So, the bottom line, at least for me is, No, I wouldn't put up with all of SL's problems if it didn't have a cash out policy.

I would stay with a no cashout situation since my little biz only covers my ingame expenses anyway(toys not tiers). I wonder tho' would we see more people learning to be content creators rather than consumers, and might not that make for a better sl experience. I managed to teach myself a tiny little corner of scripting thru inworld tutorials and I let me tell you if I can figure something like that out just about anybody can...and just that tiny success gave me a lot of enjoyment. It makes me happy to pay my tiers as I hurt my poor brain trying to figure out another little bit of content creation.
I really can't imagine gambling working without cashout since what would be the point..that said as a non-gambler, except I will sit across a table from you as a real person and play poker, but against an avatar or a machine that can count cards better than I can..ha..a mugs game.
If the cashout aspect vanished I think the really good content creators would simply work for rl$ as many do already..so in so many ways it's six o' one..half dozen of the other.

gaming open market

I am just here for fun and have been from the time I started, spent *squillions* of L$ though and *never* taken a cent out, however I see that as an entertainment expense of my personal life.

I am having and always have had so far huge amounts of fun.
When it ceases to be fun for me, then I guess I shall find something else. I dont expect that to happen though as i am always finding new things to get excited about. I imagine it would be like getting bored with FL and considering leaving....unthinkable!

Of course the platform could get totally borked and not recover and that would be no fun, but all things being equal, with a good wind, many hamsters powering the grid and *fingers crossed* the Lindens banging away as hard as they can (on the grid that is *grins*) - I will here until at least next tuesday

Regards
Nathan

I am just here for fun and have been from the time I started, spent *squillions* of L$ though and *never* taken a cent out, however I see that as an entertainment expense of my personal life.

I am having and always have had so far huge amounts of fun.
When it ceases to be fun for me, then I guess I shall find something else. I dont expect that to happen though as i am always finding new things to get excited about. I imagine it would be like getting bored with FL and considering leaving....unthinkable!

Of course the platform could get totally borked and not recover and that would be no fun, but all things being equal, with a good wind, many hamsters powering the grid and *fingers crossed* the Lindens banging away as hard as they can (on the grid that is *grins*) - I will here until at least next tuesday

Regards
Nathan

haha. Well It could be because im not too fond of the male products out. However we have come a long way, Seems to be more people catching on and making quality things for men. But i also do not like to endorse other brands unless theyre either a friend, or someone who actively sports my products in their ads, so thats part of it too.

so how much DO you make per mention of Battlefield 2?

I would still own exactly the same 6000m regardless, I'm not planning on it being my RL super investrment.

You're not seeing all the whining I see from people who, although they do spend money in SL, have no idea just how much money their land-owning neighbors are really spending. Quite a lot of people in SL are not aware of tier, and if they're not paying either tier or rent (generally they are not), they don't know the true cost of the content they're enjoying.

I'm not opposed to having nonpaying people in SL, but I get really tired of all the complaints from people who'd rather have a game economy with what amounts to levelling, than a real one.

you may not be brenda .... but I am ...

Why SHOULD a non payer get the same abilities and rights as a paying member.
I know its ME thats the mug for paying for basically very little compared to a scrounger ... oooops i meen free account

but as I said earlier, those who make nothing, wont even invest in membership already have an attitude where the ability to cash out means nothing to them and as i also said i KNOW there is a lot of free accounts who pay into the game (I know a few business owners who are based on a free acocunt) but I really do think there there should be definitions because SOMEBODY has to pay that tier fee,
When it comes down to it..... LL will proberly end up paying people to come here because at the moment, they count bots, alts, failed new accounts on the numbers. They use the excuse of SINK to take money from users to stabilise the economy, they remove gambling becasue they say its full of fraudsters....... well as a SL retailer ... arnt i just as likely to be a money launderer. Anything anywhere can be used as a way to convert dirty money into clean money but then again ...... isnt this just another string to the bow of age verification and the sterilisation of CORPORATE LIFE

i really cant blame ppl for not going premium. the base premium is somewhat a cynical offering in a sense. its entire purpose is to set you up for the upsell to 1024 premie. outside of a measly 512 tier allowance and an anaemic $300 stipend, base premium doesnt offer any value.

L$300 a week is what, $4.50 a month right? And if you take out the year subscription that works out at $6 a month. So you are paying $1.50 a month for a premium account. I actually call that good value to be honest. That's less than the cost of a good quality newspaper.

But you can wipe your bum or beat the dog with the newspaper when you're done with it.

I would prefer no gambling.

There wont even be 1/10th of the items in shops if there wasn't the promise of being able to cash out, as the content creators wouldnt make them.
Its the dream of actually being able to take money out that keeps many people putting as much effort into their items as they do.

If you couldnt cash out, most of what you would be able to buy would be freebies (things people created for fun). And freebies are usually worse than sold items.

If you simply want to be able to gamble in SL, use a scripted money system, where you win casino currency (that cannot be traded for L$) that you can spend on no transfer items (no transfer so they cannot be sold for L$)
That solves all the problems of complying with the law (since it cannot be converted to US$) without destroying SL.

I started playing SL for fun. I then started to make money. Most games have a bout a 3 month shelf life for me, I tried to quit SL after 3 months but the few items I had for sale on SLX were selling. I found this interesting, motivated by money i returned. 3 years later I now put about 20 hours a week into SL, its a part time job and If i wanted to (and was stupid) I could quit my full time job and live off of SL. Remove my ability to cash out and I am gone tomorrow, no question.

There is allot of 'stuff' in SL. 90% of it is crap that you can dismiss immediatly. The rest of the stuff, the stuff worth seeing/buying is only there becasue poeple have invested huge amounts of time and effort into creating it. And I suspect the good majority of those people continue to put the effort in (after the novelty has worn off) so they can get some rl reward, i.e. cashing out their L$. If LL decided to destroy the economy by taking away our ability to cash out I think allot of the top content creators and industry leaders would soon quit the game or at least stop creating so all you will be left with is the crap and all LL will be left with is millions of free accounts and very little revenue.