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

If World Of Warcraft gold/items wasn't transferable to real money the game would have lost 30-40% of it's players, it's correct as you say ppl wanna get some monetary compensation for what they do/make. Removing monetary value of L$ would not do any change to sl content, the only change would be LL would have less administrative costs to comply with all the laws around having a fictional currency. Content creators would simply get more room to perform.

I would continue to use SL without the ability to cash out.... I've never had anything to cash out anyway. But for all the reasons that have already been mentioned, I wouldn't support a serious proposal to take away that ability. Almost all of the really talented content creators would have much less incentive to keep making cool stuff for me to buy.

Read my post pls

It would be in content creators interest to officialy remove monetary value from L$. People would still make money, if not more money from selling content.

You don't seem to be aware how difficult it is to do micropayments.

If a micropayment system replaced the L, whatever form of currency it used could not also be used to gamble in SL, or the system would be at the same risk of being shut down by either the credit card systems or the Feds as LL would have been with the Lindex. Additionally, it would be very difficult to securely tie the micropayment system to avatar identity and insure privacy. The only model of success we have for this right now involves going off-world to shop on a website.

If a micropayment system that was not used to gamble had a currency that could be interconnected with a token system that was used to gamble, it's still gambling and the same issues apply.

Without any kind of in-game micropayments, the SL economy would slow down and prices would sharply rise, and in-world shopping would all but cease to exist.

Bully for you, but that much land is a luxury that I wouldn't crank into what would be purely an online game. As with all things, YMMV.

If they did make being Premium a requirement for cashing out L$, I'd go Premium for that. But so would any gambler who hoped to cash out their winnings. So that, in itself, won't in any way help to allow gambling in SL.

Gambling has no place in SL, or anywhere on the Internet. If it isn't done in a licenced RL-world location, like a licensed casino, there is no way to keep it honest, regulate it, or enforce any sort of 'fair' play. If you want to gamble, go to Vegas or Monte Carlo or some other place that allows RL gambling, and have fun. Don't do it on the Internet, anywhere.

The only content providers that could succeed in SL accepting solely external payments would be the really high-end ones, whose individual transactions are routinely over $25 to $100 USD. A sim designer, like myself, could certainly take a payment by PayPal or wire transfer for hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of work in SL. But that simply won't fly for a texture artist or clothing designer, where the average individual sale is a buck or less. The transaction fees for processing the payments in the RL world would eat you alive. You get $1.25 for a nice designer dress in SL. And you pay $1.00 in fees to get that money into or out of PayPal? I don't think so. And dealing with payments via credit cards are worse. Believe me, I am already set up to accept credit card transactions, but I won't accept a credit card charge for less than $50 USD, because the fees don't make it worth it.

There would be no prob at all, as you saw back in 2005 with GOM, same as you see with world of warcraft (iknow personaly people that play WOW just for the money, they make 1-1,5k USD monthly).

i have bought a lot of stuff and bought lindens too...

and as for gambling, it isnt a big thing to me, but actually, the simplest solution if the government didnt have their silly laws affecting credit card companies, is to have a real world licensed gaming company do the gambling, from servers hosted in places where it is legal, including in the US.

New Jersey, Nevada, and almost every Indian reservation have gambling establishments and have entities who are licensed to run gaming operations and follow strict laws regarding payout and all.

a wily company with the legal means to do so, could enter into an agreement with LL , and be the big monopoly of gaming in world and run casinos on sims which were in accordance with all the laws governing gaming under their license.

and the point that the poll will be skewed is exactly true...people who do make money are much more likely to come and vote and inflate those numbers than those who do not.

You forget one option (that has many people there):

Many users dont have AT THIS MOMENT earnings or profit but are TRYING to get there.
A BIG percent of people are in SL because they are planning to make money.

If you stop the cash out, you will kill SL.

Most of products developed was developed because the developer has hopes to make money a cash it out of SL.

The BIG HIT of SL was being able to make an economy inside. Without this, SL will fail.

Same can be said of land sales, sex, banking, stock exchanges and shopping if you follow that line of reasoning.

Moving the exchange from the Lindex to something like GOM wouldn't do anything to let LL off the hook, for as long as they knowingly permitted gambling in SL.

And you've missed my argument... a micropayment system not based in-world would also be one that is not denominated in L. This would neither sustain the economy nor let LL off the hook.

Anyway, I'm done with this argument. If you think LL or anyone can do an end-run around the Feds forever, you're in Fantasy Land. If you really want gambling in SL, either tell the lawmakers to repeal the stupid law that led to the ban, or contribute to the open source push so that servers can eventually be hosted on non-LL grids abroad.

However: does it make sense for gamers to play in totally nonregulated casinos?

i wouldn play SL with out a way to get my $ out
. The ability to create and sell things is SL's only allure. I mean there are better video games out there

Actually, only a fool would participate in an SL Bank or Stock Exchange, either, as the suckers who invested in a certain SL bank recently found out, to their financial loss. Promised high rates of return, and in the end, when it collapsed, they got maybe 15% of what they invested back at all. That is a huge, unconsciencable loss, and completely unregulated.

Land sales in SL are iffy, but at least you generally have something of value in hand for each transaction. I only own that amount of land that I have a personal use for. "Investing" in SL land or buying it and flipping it for a profit is largely a scam.

Sex for pay? I never do pay for or profit from sex in SL, unless you count purchasing sexy clothes, props and animations for my occasional personal enjoyment, with those I choose to freely associate with, or occasionally tipping a dancer in a club I happen to be in for other reasons. And even for those who do work as or hire escorts, it's pretty clear right up front if you got what you paid for or not.

Shopping? There I don't see the connection. You pay, and you get the merchandise. Merchants who don't deliver, or who deliver shoddy work, won't profit from it for long. Again, you generally have something of value in hand for each transaction.

this is dependant upon somebody taking the one year subscription though. i think most people that are going premium for the first time will go monthly. and monthly premium does not offer enough bang for the buck.

Ask each of the finest content creators if they will continue to put as much effort into making things if they arnt able to cash out.
If even one sais no, then the quality of the items you can buy next year has gone down.

If most of them say no, then you wont get many new quality items created.
So no new clothes, skins, hair, avs, guns, houses etc etc, just the same old stuff, never changing.
No point visiting shops any more as they will never get new things. No new shops opening, as the incentive is gone.

I dont think allot of end users realise the amount of time and effort the more suscessfull content creators put into this game. Yeah it's great when people like your products and tell you so, but that is not what drives the larger businesss in SL. If you go to the effort of setting up a shop and selling items then it's quite clear your main motivation is money, or else you wouldnt have bothered and would be offering your products for free. Take away the ability to cash out and the top content will disapear overnight or will become free for all to use.

You're missing my point completely, all i'm saying is look at wow, it's strictly forbidden to cashout to RL cash, still ppl do it in HUGE quantities. If you you look back in sl's history same rule applied here, sell L$ on ebay = not ok, but people made a living out of sl and it gave LL much more room. The only difference would be you'd have to do it through a 3rd party, or directly to ppl that need L$, L$ is a limited commodity and ppl will always pay the price to get their hands on a limited commodity.

If SL's residents were unable to cash themselves out into USD to pay their obligations to LL (which are USD obligations), but were forced to do that outside of SL, there would have to be a very robust and reliable market that would reliably buy $L in a secure way that would translate into USD that are easily applied to the typist's account obligations to LL. LL is currently acting as a "market maker" in Lindens -- it's like its own central banker. If that currency function were to be completely outsourced, SL's residents would need to have a fully reliable system that would quickly convert into SL-usable USD, and LL would have to have a lot of faith in the platform in order to resign their central banking powers completely like that.

But it's not completely reliable. Once the Lindens leave your hands, you could still be defrauded through a payment dispute on paypal. It's happened more than once. I'll take the LindeX.

I pay into Warcraft, Coh & other online games too, and I pay internet very month too to play games.............