Should basic stipends stay or go away?

I voted stay the same, 'casue the economy seems to be pretty much in a happy place at the moment. No use messing with people's stipends without good reason, eh?

So, what the heck brought this up? Coco, are you looking to take away our stipends?

Voted stay the same.

MJ

In a town hall meeting a year ago, Philip explained how the system works. He started out by explaining what the average bank account was of residents. I seem to recall it being around 7400 Lindens.

When a new resident comes into the world, they get 1500 Lindens and the person referring them gets 1000 Lindens. The remainder is used as dwell and stipend payments, which make up the difference.

So, in a sense, premium account newbies subsidize these payments, but its economy neutral.

I think the current system is fine.

LL has decreased what they give developers....that means club owners etc. will decrease what they pay people that work there. Not eveyone in SL builds and sells things, many of us work and buy what we need...less people will be hired, lower wages will be paid....fewer items will be bought and the economy will go to the dogs.

Not all of us can affort to buy lindens when we need them and we would like to have a little house and not live on the streets. There are enough bag people in rl we don't need them in SL also.

I pay my account by the year, but if I can't afford to have the things I would like to have I will just leave the game and I am sure fewer people will be coming in once they realize.
they can not have a SL that is perhaps better than thier rl.

If LL is going to make sure we can not earn the money for a better life they should increase the stipend they pay us.

This is going to be a very frustrating situation for everyone.

Dang! I forgot the most important option: Keep the stipend payments, but give them all to Coco!

Oh nonsense. I've not sold a bean in SL and I get far more money from the stipend than I ever need.

I didn't understand a word of that, Weedy. But it did remind me that I had forgotten something else they could cut, too - those referral bonuses. Ever since they made the game free, I've been figuring we are skating on borrowed time with those bonuses. I wish I had more people to refer to get the bonus while the gettin's good.

Paige, that is pretty much my fear also. My foray the other night into the fun stuff I used to do more of - and discovering that free slots doesn't pay what it used to - made me realize that it might be becoming a more hardscrabble life for non-content creators, thanks to these new changes. Any other things such they might have on the chopping block, if they do (besides dwell), will make it worse, I figure.

coco

oh oh oh twenty lashes for that! oooh it hurts so good i mean bad!

coco

I would like to see a system beside camp chairs where a casual player could grind out some L$. Many online games have mining or killing lil animals to grind out a living.

I propose the Lindens make a Sim that is a huge strip mining pit. People can go there and mine rock for hours on end for L$. If you’re lucky you could find a diamond or a piece of gold to turn in for cash. Rich people can stand at the top of the pit and hurl tomatoes and insults and the po folk below. It'll be fun, kind of like these forums.

In a nutshell, what I meant was this.

In order for a new resident to be on the same footing as everyone else within the economy, they should be given about 7400 Lindens at birth. The Lindens give them and the referral 2500 Lindens. The rest goes to stipends and dwell.

On that note, it's safe to say the current system is safe, so long as new residents keep coming.

As a nearly broke newbie on a basic account, I'm not without a dog in this fight -- yes, it would personally be nicer for me to get more than L$50 a week. Especially as I'm trying to make clothing, and five texture uploads a week isn't all that much when you factor in the inevitable tweaks I'll have to make once I actually see something on my avatar. I don't see increasing the basic stipend by a small amount as causing much inflation (of course, keep in mind that I slept through Economics), but I do think it reduces the incentives on players to buy a premium account.

However, while I tentatively don't think that basic stipends should be increased, I'm sure of my opinion that they shouldn't be decreased or eliminated. People have brought up the issue of how hard it can be for casual players or poor newbies to have fun, because of how difficult it can be to get money. I think that eliminating the basic stipend will (besides making SL less fun, and in some occasions very little fun, for people on basic accounts) hurt retention rates of new players. And let's face it, it's not like SL's the most newbie friendly place anyway -- the interface can be strange and nonintuitive, and finding help can be quite difficult.

L$500 per week seems like plenty for any beginner or casual player, so I don't see premium accounts as needing a boost. Of course, my perspective could be skewed because of how few L$s I personally have -- L$500 seems like a small fortune to me!

Am i only the only one totally confused about these answers?

"Exactly the same but different"?

I am actually in favor of eliminating stipends all together.

As SL transitions from a third world economy to a post-industrial one, it will be necessary for wealth generation to occur within the existing monetary stockpiles. As we are now going on 3+ years of "free money" (stipends) the printing presses may need to be let rest for awhile.

Of course, if deflation became an issue, LL could implement some sort of centralized government spending by sponsoring initiatives that it believes to be beneficial to the community at large.

I know I'm in the minority here, but thats just my two cents.

Peace out.

Watch out, SLs self apointed top economic minds about..

I'd like the stipends to stay the same, but I'd like to be paid in the cookie equivalent of my stipend.

In all seriousness, though, as much as I'd like to be paid more, considering L$ can be cashed out, I feel lucky to be getting anything with a basic account. Of course, I suppose without so many basic accounts around, there wouldn't be the population to bring in the real money makers, so maybe I'm being paid the small amount that I'm worth.

I say we remove stipend altogether.

SL can't hold the hand of the community forever by handing money to people. It's time to leave the money to SL entrepreneurs! Prokofy Neva (sp?) did an interessing experiment once by issuing prim coin that could be exanged for L$ ; so we see there is an obvious interest from businesses to print their own money.
There is infinite exciting possibilities waiting for us there, but not until stipends are removed.


Remember, when SL hands you money, it hands you communism.

Stipends to premium account holders are part of their monthly fee. An incentive to have a premium account rather than a free one.

Stipends to free accounts are part of LL's loss-leader advertising to try and get more premium accounts. Deliberately a taste rather than sufficient to do stuff on. Premium folks pay the bills, LL wants the bills paid.

Still smells like capitalism to me. But then I stayed awake in government class.

Short and to the point. I love it.

of course, surreal is actually an anarchist. she keeps her old rum bottles in a closet to be used as molotov cocktails. these were named after a communist, who had assisted in overthrowing the imperialists. they were famously used against the invading tanks of the socialist democrats, who at the time were allied to the fascists.

in point of fact. all of these named systems were dictatorships. all we have to do, is bump off those pesky anarchists, appoint me dictator for life, and i will make sure the trains run on time. tyvm.

oh, sorry, i forgot to add, yes, in my regime, there will be pie.

I'm about at the point of believing that it would be for the best to eliminate the basic stipend altogether while maintaining the premium stipend as an incentive to upgrade and increase the percentage of tier paying members. The expectation that the act of showing up will be paid starts with the weekly stipend. Provide the new player with a welcome wagon package of lindens as incentive to try SL out but establish off the bat that you either make money or buy it.

I don't know that it isn't more appropriate to question whether the basic stipend serves to retain players rather than suggesting that its elimimination will cause people to leave. I rarely hear the basic stipend described as anything other than inadequate. The amount is too small to warrant appreciation, maybe?

Someone I knew who had a "fondness" for cocaine told me that for him one line is too much and not enough at the same time. Maybe the basic stipend is like that.

Very astute, Margaret! I hadn't thought of that, and the cocaine analogy is perfect. I might vote for remove the basic stipend.

coco

The effects of removing the basic stipend would be immediate and profound, I think. It's not a situation we can approve or discard without having a lot more information.

Let's assume that the 100,000 user count, which is said to include residents who have accounts and have logged in within the last six weeks, is wrong.

Let's be very conservative and then say we'd be dealing with 50,000 basic accounts.

50,000 * L$50 * 1 week = L$2.5 million

50,000 * L$50 * 4 weeks = L$10 million

50,000 * L$50 * 52 weeks = L$130 million (About US$500,000)


The difference after one year is significant, and this is using very conservative inputs that do not even attempt to account for growth in the user base.

What does that mean?

I don't know. But removing the stipend entirely will effect the economy in a big way. Additionally, we will lose a means of exactly scaling the currency supply alongside growth in the user base.

I'm no Adam Smith and I honestly can't tell you what the final effect of such a move would be. But this is far from a simple matter and it can't be decided by individual desires, angels and demons sitting on our shoulders or anything else. The current goal of Linden Lab with regard to its currency system is to provide a strong and reliable means of compensating individuals who make SL interesting. A strong and reliable economy can be manipulated, predicted and protected by reasonably scientific measures and methods and it will be these that LL uses -- no the capricious whimsy of the user base.

So my point is that I can't take a stance in either direction as to the removal of basic stipends, as I believe that the subject is far too enormous in consequence for me to render judgment given the very limited supply of data, experience and theory currently at my disposal. And because of this, I also can't be swayed by the argument that it makes people "feel bad" to have too much and yet not enough.

BAD En!! No whipping out the math.. it interferes with fuzzy feel good logic.

In this virtual world it's all about the fuzzy feel good. Here today, gone tomorrow.