The SL account I originally bought and paid for monthly no longer exists so I dont pay for it. I never did the ratings thing but I did spend a lot fo time creating and exploring, and you used to get $L for that. Was that the best idea? No, but the fact remains todays account is not equal to the account of 2 years and SL is slower now than it was then. LOL
Not on my machine it isn't and I'm sure you are tired of hearing that; it's true though. I dunno about you but 2 years ago there was not much actually in SL. No estates, not that many shops and items available were not that great most of the time, there was no music in SL except strung together 10 sec clips, no custom animations, clubs sucked because they only had the few dance animations that came with SL, people were walking around in horrid avatars because few people actually sold them and those that did charged ungodly amounts for it and had waiting lists that could be months long. Avatar hair was absolutely awful and so were the skins, any skins that were worth having cost $4000 and up (and most of those wouldn't pass muster today compared to today's scary real skins). Two years ago SL was not twice as valuable as it is today, back then I was good to get 3 frames per second and the fog obscured everything more than a couple meters away. Heh, damn them good ol' days.
Stipend is hardly the reason I left SL, the RL $$ lay out didn't make sense any more, and the technical issues were more than I could handly. I haven't been able to build or move well in months.
Buuut that's not what you said... you said..never mind.
You can argue with me until you are blue in the face, the numbers tell the real story. The 10% conversion rate speaks for itself. SL does not seem valuable to most people. It doesn't matter if it is the best thing since sliced bread if no one wants it.
10% conversion rate of what to what? What numbers are you citing because 10% of anything is, well, not that much. Compared to TSO? SWGalaxies Online? Socialtron (like a 90% abandonment from that one) There? Everyone I meet seems to be a refugee from other games. Hell I tiered down then tiered back up once I had a reason to own land again. The fact you are even still marginally interested in a game you started 2 years ago says a lot, I have games I lost interest in after a week.