Vote: How do you feel about the new stipend cuts?

Hey, Lindens

How many people will quit when you cut the bonus and the only money they get is 50 a week. Many normal people come here to have fun, not work.

I think it is bad.... Very very very bad.

what do you think is bad?? cutting the rating bonuses or boycotting the purchase of $L?

(on the other hand...) sorta like when Daddy cuts off one's allowance and announces: "Go get a job." That's how I picture it. (in fact it's not even close to this scenerio. Out allowance (stipend) will continue to roll in. Which is fine by me, as it's a subscription based equal payout across the board.).

Rating bonus ca$h been money for nothing for a long ass time. A seriously borked system and so stupid, economically, that it blows my mind the Lindens even implemented it in the first place. Let alone have let it run for so long when it's completely obvious that it's been gamed over and over and over.

I'm extremely glad they'll finally remove any monetary ties to ratings, they certainly shouldn't have been there in the first place. Now if they'd just require us to pay back all that inflated money we've all recieved from said bonuses. :P

So who will continue to make content for you to enjoy if it's not worth the time and effort? I'd like to buy big expensive gadgets too, but I don't have the Lindens rolling in from ratings stipends. Lucky you.



If I'm not mistaken, people buying money adds no Lindens to the money supply. However, I believe the ratings income people receive does add Lindens to the pool - hence lowering the value of the currency and adversely impacting the content creators who spend their time making the things you want to play with.

In your Hotline post you say you just want to "have fun, relax, and socialize"... none of those things require money. I don't sell content; make no money in-world whatsoever. I also came into SL after the ratings changes so I have almost no ratings and receive little or no rating bonus as a result. I still "have fun, relax, and socialize".



My understanding is that LL will not be making money off of the currency system changes. They are iirc looking into how to deal with fees just to keep them out of that "selling Lindens for profit" mess. And interestingly, they'll also be eating chargeback fees - so they may actually be operating at a loss. That's how I understood Philip during the last Town Hall. If you can explain how - given what's been officially said so far - that LL will make money directly off of currency exchange, please do. They may make money on currency exchange at some point, but as I understand it, their current intention is to do the one thing they've been focused on for months: encourage the creation of high-quality content in order to attract more Premium subscribers. That's how I understand they intend to make money. And to promote that, they need to get rid of "sources" that add nothing to the overall economic health and which obviously do not bring in new subscribers.

Again, this is how I understand it. I could be completely off-base, and would be more than happy to hear where I'm in error.

I have to be honest, I think the Feature Voting system is a mess. And besides, it's instructive for me to just watch as people complain but don't suggest constructive ways to fix problems; don't even discuss them when they're suggested. I don't get it. Hopefully someday I'll figure them out.

Poor analogy imo. No one forces me to buy Lindens. I've never purchased Lindens to buy content, so "forced" is a loaded term. Additionally, the legal requirement to have car insurance would be more analogous to forcing people to use a currency exchange to buy Lindens to pay for ... let's call it "Permission" ... to wear attachments.

I have a better idea. Rather than people having their friends spending money to rate them so they can then get a recurring bonus from LL (which hasn't been decaying properly and leading to an imbalance in the "sink/source" ratio), why not just panhandle? Find people in-world who have money and ask to have some? It's already happening. I just had someone approach me and ask for $L300 (I only had $L120).

(hmmm. I'm thinking clothing makers are going to create a new line of "Panhandler Outfits"

I never said it wan't worth the time or effort for some people. Some people enjoy the creating aspect, i don't! I also don't enjoy watching how upset some of my friends who do create things and run businesses get when they are harrassed by people wanting things a certain way, or who complain about how something is, or demand more service from them.



how can it not? one minute someone has $1000 L then they go to the GOM and poof they have $100,000 L? That sure seems like adding to the money supply to me. Perhaps when they are purhasing them from other players it won't be but as far as I know GOM and IGE will still exist and operate adding money to the supply.




I guess I misunderstood and thought that you would be able to purchase $L directly from LL which would certainly profit. New subscribers are going too have a very difficult time creating content if they receive no stipend. I know right now the stipend is in danger, but since other cuts have done nothing for inflation, this one probably won't either, and therefore as Robin said in my first hotline post, they may look too stipends and traffic bonuses to further stabilize the economy. I'm just having a really hard time with this whole economy thing because it's a game...and for those like me who have no real creative talent, these stabilization moves are seriously hurting our enjoyment of SL. I couldn't afford to buy more land if I wanted to without saving for MONTHS. A plot by me that was about $8,000 L when I bought my plot almost a year ago is now going for almost $20,000L This was after the ratings decay took place. I do not make tons of mony from my ratings. I got a lot of ratings early on when I was a noob, when the ratings decay took place I lost all but a very few and even those are dwindling. Like I said origionally I'm not oppsed to the ratings bonuses being cut, but I will be VERY opposed to any reduction in our base stipends.

I was asking a question. I'll ask it again: So who will continue to make content for you to enjoy if it's not worth the time and effort? You said you enjoyed "expensive gadgets". I assume they're expensive for a reason. If free money (e.g. ratings bonuses) is used to buy these expensive things, at the end of the day, what is the monetary value of the content/product you're buying? Nothing, nada, zero. Linden Lab could flood the world with bonus play money and drive the value of the Linden to nothing such that a content creator would only get worthless Lindens in exchange for their real world labor. How long will they continue to provide these fun toys for others to enjoy? Why should they? What is their incentive? To watch as others have fun while they spend their time in Photoshop or SciTE-ez? Is that a reasonable expectation?

Linden Lab controls the money in circulation. They are the ONLY entity who can add money into the supply pool. When someone gets money from GOM or IGE, those services do not add money to the pool, they only facilitate its circulation. However, as I understand the Linden currency system, ratings bonus's are "sources" - money is created and put into the pool. Linden Lab mints new currency. This is countered by "sinks" such as texture upload fees, where Linden Lab removes old currency. Just like in real life.

If I'm incorrect in my understanding, perhaps someone can correct me.

I've not seen anything recently wrt the Premium users stipend being reduced; only that the rating bonus is being phased out. Given all the forum activity, I could easily have overlooked that coming change. If this has been announced by LL, please provide a link to the thread or a post that states a reduction is imminent. Thank you.


No offense, but I think you might want to read more carefully. This is what Robin said:

There are two remaining sources: weekly stipends and traffic payments. Both these sources ebb and flow with population. I have no reason to think at this time that we'll eliminate either source, although it's possible the amount could change if necessary to manage inflation. It's also possible a sink could be increased, or a new one discovered (although it's very hard to create sinks that are significant enough to have a noticeable impact).

So to answer your question. We have no plans to change or eliminate stipends, but we do recognize that they are among the options we have for managing the amount of money in circulation, and therefore the overall economy.

Translation: Weekly stipends and dwell are NOT currently in danger and LL will use them as necessary (maybe decrease or maybe increase) to help stabilize the economy.

Then I suggest you relax if that Hotline response is getting you worried. As I expected, the response is relatively vague and not worth getting alarmed over imo.

It looks like LL is going in the currency business. Cutting the stipend is not a surprise.
If you were going to sell water and owned the only public well in town. You would close the well first. I think this will hurt the merchants. This puts a dent in your disposable income.
People will be less inclined to make impulse purchases.

Rox

Are you saying that we who view SL as a game should put a RL value on virtual objects? The majority of the content creators, as I understand it, create content to (and I've seen this several times) "contribute something to the society of SL", or to see if they can, and not to make a RL buck, or so they say. I'm beginning to believe there need to be 2 different SL's, one for the people who want to use it as a secondary source of RL income, and one for the people who want a game to play.



Honestly I am not great at math or money issues so I suppose all that stuff is best left up to LL...I suppose there is a lot of money in circulation, but it certainly seems that the majority of it must be in relatively very few hands.



It hasn't been announced, there is no thread, and I read her response plenty carefully, but the fact that Robin admitted that it's possible that those are places they can go to try to control inflation is what has me worried. I was just fishing trying to find out if the LL vision of SL lead to a SL without stipends where everyone has to create to get any $L at all. I was hoping to get a response something like "player stipends will never be lowered as we realize many players depend on these to have any SL income and cannot afford to spend their own RL money to purchase $L" When I didn't get that back I did worry. I know it's not going to be next week, but the fact that it could and probably will happen saddens me.

Fact is, when I joined it was a game, and $L to me have always been game money. Like the board game life...you get your pay day every so often. If this game has changed so much to where it will eventually become necessary to hold down a job to get any cash flow then I'm not sure it's something I want to be a part of! I have jobs...don't need more!

Now I havn't attacked anyone personally, I haven't belittled anyone. I recognize that there are those who want RL gains from SL and there are those that don't want anything else than MMPORG entertainment, and I don't think that either group should be stifled in their way of enjoying SL in favor of the other. Those are both choices people have the right to make about their SL. Unfortuantely "stabilizing the community" tends to favor those who run businesses than those who don't. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop attacking me. I'm just trying to put my thoughts out there so that WHEN the time comes that LL is considerig removing or lowering stipends, they will see that there are many in world who would be hurt significantly by that!

Whether viewed as a game or not, by virtue of paying Lindens for virtual objects, a RL value is assigned to them, because those Lindens can be converted to real world currency. No surprise. Poker is a game too. When the chips can't be converted to another currency they effectively have no value beyond what the players assign to them - bragging rights for the winner (a different kind of value). Once they can be cashed in for US currency (or some other legal tender), they have a monetary value that is assigned to them.

Read the ToS and Robin's response to questions regarding "value". The ToS states that items in SL have no "intrinsic value". Well, neither does a ticket to the Superbowl but good luck getting one (especially on the 50 down near the field - another differentiator of value). There's intrinsically no reason for red chips to be worth more or less US dollars than black chips. They do however have assigned values that differentiate their value. So when you purchase "expensive gadgets" you are assigning a value. Furthermore, you differentiate between what's worth more and what is not ("expensive" as opposed to cheap). If an item cost you L$2000, then you paid about US$ 7 for the item and have contributed to making SL less of a "game".

As for the majority, if they truly want to "contribute", then I'd venture they'd be creating original content and giving that away. I don't see that happening. Perhaps we already have two different SLs.



It does seem that way.



Why? This should be obvious since they are attempting to manage a virtual economy. And note her comment about increasing drain via a "sink". In that case you might not get more Lindens in your weekly stipend, but those Lindens value would increase. The fewer Lindens in circulation, the more value they have (like anything).



To be honest, I'm not even sure going open source would automatically mean the removal of stipends. So long as people are paying them a monthly fee, there's no obvious reason that I see for them to remove stipends. If SL went open source, people would still pay for the things LL has set up here; after all, people pay for custom versions of Linux even though the basic platform is free to download.



I hear this alot: "when I joined it was a game". Was it? From the interviews I've heard SL was never intended to be a game. When it went to beta, I didn't see it as a game (unfortunately I couldn't run SL or There during betas - my videocards have until recently been entirely for CAD applications; can't even run SL on my other machine and it's CAD card originally cost $2000).



First off, I disagree. If you've following the "game industry", you know that high-quality content is an issue. Linden Lab is doing something pretty bold in how to address content.

Secondly, I don't believe I'm "attacking you" and would appreciate your pointing to something I've posted that is an attack. I'm merely responding to comments you're making that I think are in error. If you feel that by pointing out these errors I'm in some way attacking you, please say so. However, to simply not respond would be to allow what I consider incorrect conjecture and interpretation to spread to others. I don't see the logic in allowing that to happen.

What does "going into the currency business" mean? By virtue of the fact that they are they only one's able to mint Lindens, they've always been in the currency business.

They're cutting the stipend?

I don't know if it will hurt the merchants. Possibly. It does appear to be intended to help them. And given that "impulse purchases" are - by definition - impulsive actions, I'm not sure how the cut in the ratings bonus and the changes in currency distribution will affect the economy.

They only increase in value if you can purchase more from what you've got. Which lately I have not been able to. Infact I've been able to buy less and less for my $L since joining regarless of sinks and dwindling sources. But as Phillip pointed out in another one of my hotline questions...some of the better contetent is becoming a full time job for people. Wish I had that kind of time to spend creating something...unfortunately I do not. (no sarcasm meant)



I have never paid any $us for items in SL because I have never traded any of my $us for $L. But I get your gambling analogy. I hate gambling personaly, and when I do rarely go to a casino I give myself a certain ammount of money and when it's gone I'm through...so I guess once my $L bank is empty I'll be through with SL unless I can find the time to create something someone would actually want to buy. Considering the amount of time the successful business people put in and all the BS they have to deal with from customers, I'll probably never be able to compete with that. I've worked in RL retail and I just hated it to death....not because the work was hard but because of how unreasonable people can be. Not that teaching is all that different, but with teaching it's usually only the parents who are difficult and only a very few of them, the kids are great!



Well, that was my take on it. I learned of SL from a game forum and I realize there is no real objective like there is to most "games" but it was never promoted to me as anything to take more seriously than a virtual world to have fun in. You know...make yourself look the way you wish you did in RL, build the house you wish you could have, create something if you're so inclined and talented...etc. When I joined it was never pitched to me as a RL business opportunity.

I'm sorry I mistook the tone of your messages. They seemed as "in your face" as many of the other sarcastic flamers around here that I truly thought you were attacking. On top of that my pregnant-self is very hormonal and tends to overreact as of late so I apologize for insinuating that you were attacking me. In error or not I believe that the money in SL should be more equally distributed in some way that is fair to everyone, but I'm not sure that exists. Fact is the majority of the money in SL is held by a relatively small percentage of the population, not to mention the sinks do not balance the source. I think LL should look at increasing the sinks before they lower the sources any more to be fair to the common person like me. I pay my membership fee and my land tier and I do not feel that I should be expected to contribute to the "community" any more than that unless it was part of the the agreement I made when I joined...which it was not. Don't get me wrong, I think those who create some of the things in SL are incredibly talented, and oh how I wish they would be hired by a gaming company to create whole new worlds to explore if thats what they really want to do. I have so much respect for scripters...I cannot even begin to understand scripting. I also have great admiration for builders, and clothing makers, and hair makers, and skin makers. They have an understanding of photoshop and paint shop pro that I could never have unless I quit my job and did nothing but study those programs. I respect them and admire their talent but I still do not believe they deserve any more consideration in this world than those who are less talented do. Unfortunately like real life, the rich are not hit as hard as the poor when it comes to "stabilizing the economy" Taxes do not hurt the rich as much as they do the poor because it is a lower percentage of their income that they have to give to the govt. Well, taking away rating bonuses obviously doesn't hurt the business owners as hard as it does the non business owners.....gee..I think my SL is getting a little too close to RL...maybe they'll institute taxes next....yikes better not give them any ideas.

I'll continue to play and learn and do my SL thing and I'll be interested to see if the rating bonus cut does anything to increase the value of $L....and I don't mean on the GOM, I mean in prices of content in game. Though I think more people than not will choose to give up rather than pay for $L so eventually the business owners will have trouble selling their content so they'll raise their prices even more or they'll go out of business and then we'll see a major economic crash and perhaps we'll get some of our incentives back Who knows.

This misunderstanding is so widespread and profound that it really does need to be spelled out again.
Unless people get this right then every comment they make about the money supply, exchange rate, inflation etc is meaningless and a delusion.

So I'll attempt a clarification.

It turned out quite big, and may attract some argument which would be off-topic here, so I gave it its own thread:

/130/13/60254/1.html

I completely agree with Ellie... don't argue about the economy if you don't even know how it works.

I like that they cut back on the rating bonus. Now perhaps the value of L$ won't plunge as quickly as it was plunging before.

Personally, I'm on a basic account, but I'm not a big spender. I have about L$2500 on my account, and I like having enough money to be able to give people good ratings, or to upload a bunch of files.

I find that I don't need to buy ANYTHING to have fun. You can be a sandbox bum and just chat and create with friends, perhaps spending a few linden on a texture or sound upload, or on giving someone a rating. But I must have missed the memo about needing to have stuff to have fun. I find that 70% of the things that I could really use are free, that I can script/build the other 20% of them, and that, of the remaining 10%, I can afford them.

If this can make a few people who were dragging down the economy quit, then I say it is a Good Thing. LL is having no troubles finding new customers, and I'll bet that most people have gotten at least one friend to join.

True enough. And I believe the hope is that the adjustments being made now will help the Linden to rise in value. So if that's true, my suggestion would be to save your weekly stipend til later - it's buying power isn't as strong now (assuming content creators are raising their Linden prices to maintain the US dollar value).

That said, I'm not so sure the change in currency distribution methods will have a significant impact on either the quality of content or on the overall market. My questions during the Town Hall were more or less directed at the issue I see right off the bat: how do we even measure the impact of these changes?

As for drying up the "sources" (e.g. rating bonus), I think there's some merit in the comments that content makers might get pinched. Or maybe, it'll thin the content market a bit. However, I suspect someone will read my suggestion and start a business around it (if that's not already being done).

Well, if you're ever interested in trying, I'd be more than happy to try to help you learn the tools.

Actually, if you're on a Premium account you are trading US$ for Lindens in a sense. It's not obvious in the way others go to GOM or IGE and buy Lindens directly, but it's not really any different.

I don't believe it's necessary to be a content creator or land dealer to make money in SL. As Second Life continues to increasingly mirror the real world, I suspect there will be ever increasing opportunities of all kinds. As an example, if I were a content creator, I might hire people to be viral marketers - i.e. here's the clothing/hair/jewelry/whatever i want you to show off and a couple hundred Lindens... now go socialize.

No apology necessary. I'm aware that the way I dissect things can leave that impression. I'm sorry you took it that way as it is not intentional.

I agree that more equal distribution of wealth is desirable. And also agree that wealth distribution probably too closely mirrors the real world. Further, I'd agree the sinks do not balance the sources - but given the falling value of the Linden, I'd venture there are too many sources and not enough sinks.

Would you agree to a sink if it was paying for a teleport - even a telehub to telehub? Probably not. Or what about personal teleports? Again, probably not. The point is, whether increasing sinks or lowering sources, the impact will likely still be felt. The rating's bonus was targeted as I understand it because the system was simply broken and unfair. I certainly didn't benefit from it. But then again, I rarely purchase things.

No. Probably not. However, it doesn't hurt me at all. I simply don't purchase things. I can socialize and attend events and do quite a number of things... and none of that costs any money.

Well, if the value increases, then prices should come down a bit. Whether businesses pass on that savings is another matter and I'm also curious to see how things develop. And I agree, we may see businesses shut down. After all, in the end it's the consumer who has the real power... but the consumer has to throw off the yoke of their buying addictions.

I agree, they print they can sell it. I don't really buy the line about the ecomony being in trouble. Tighting up the money supply means people will buy money. From a buiness point of view I don't blame them. Phil has watched a lot of potential income by with gom doing the currency business.





Cutting the bounus ratings which is part of your over all stipend. I call it my linden welfare check



Joe user has 200 lindens in his accout and sees some useless trinket that cost 200. He may buy it thinking "oh well I get paid tomorrow" If he knows that he has to make is buck go further he may not be so inclined to make that inpulse purchase.

Oh gosh, I'm so sorry, I got called away before I could put the link into that post (not that the omission broke anyones heart I bet).

So anyway, here it is now - my take on the reality of the SL money supply. Didn't turn out badly, though (as usual and sadly) a tiny bit preachey. I do get so carried away......

I won't necessitate you clicking the link :
_____________________________________________________

This misunderstanding is so widespread and profound that it really does need to be spelled out again.
Unless people get this right then every comment they make about the money supply, exchange rate, inflation etc is meaningless and a delusion.

So I'll attempt a clarification.

No-one but LL can make or destroy L$. When you buy L$ from GOM you are buying them from another player, with whom they "put you in contact". When you buy from IGE, I believe you buy from a stock they hold, but this "holding" must be in the account of an SL avatar, and it has all been purchased from other residents.

In both cases you get the L$ from the hands of a chain of residents, the first of which must have got it from LL.

The L$ are continually passed from resident to resident, but the total amount of them remains the same except when LL is directly involved.

To stabilize the exchange rate and/or prices, the amount of L$ circulating inworld needs to be adjusted to match the value of the goods and services circulating in the opposite direction. These will change as the number of residents, or their buying fever, changes.

To make these adjustments (if it decides to) LL could actually come to GOM (maybe disguised as an alt) and either buy L$ which it then destroys (never uses again inworld), or create new L$ which it sells. But it has promised not to do this. And no wonder, because (at least in one direction) it would be risking real US$.

So it is reduced to manipulating the less direct "sources and sinks" for L$, that do create/destroy L$, thus changing the amount in circulation.

The most obvious of these are rating bonuses (about to be cut) stipends (not going to be cut for now) and L$ landsales which for some reason they have now abandoned except for first land.

So you see, its all a bit less obvious than it seems to the superficial glance.

However ridiculous it may seem, trading on GOM and IGE cannot affect the money supply, nor can any amount of credit card waving create a single L$.

LL have made it clear that even their new trading facility will be done the same way. No birth or death of any L$ - just helping residents to trade as easily as possible (invisibly) with each other, using the same old L$ created (perhaps) long ago. All GOM does is balance up the changing levels of demand (enthusiasm) for L$ or US$ to set a relative value at which they change hands. But the L$ which leave the hands of one resident always end up in the hands of another, so the total number does not change.

It may be worth pointing out that it is not a question of whether LL should interfere or not. It cannot help interfering. The very act of leaving things as they are is still interference, if only because nothing is static anyway. The continual growth of the population demands more currency, as the growth of a body needs more blood, so there shall still be enough to be pumped round it. It may look as though LL can leave things alone, because the stipend (extra newly created L$ which every new subscriber gets) does do a crude job of adding a bit of currency/blood just for each new arrival. But it is a crude job, and things will inevitably drift askew if that is the only growth/adjustment system in operation.

What do I mean - drift askew ?

Here is an extreme example which makes it clear:
Without this crude auto-adjustment through stipend, left to itself, when the population reaches a million (50x?) the exchange rate would be very roughly US$175/1000 and every seller would have been forced to adjust his prices frequently and laboriously during the long climb. No price could be less than 1L$ which would be useless because for many products that is too big, since it corresponds to a forced L$50 minimum today.

I hope I didn't get that the wrong way round - I'm getting sleepy !

but people who use that to half pay there apartment and rent are going to be screwed allso
25L a hour with tips mabye makes you about 90 a night in my case most of the time about 50L...with this it will probley go lower to around 30L a night thats just working for about 2 hours then with only 50L a week thats goin to kinda force me to buy more money to pay for a aparment thats 500L Plus a week or 400L...Even the outfits thats 100+ will take most people weeks to get now with this...only hurting those who cant afford to pay much into Sl...and the more pay you put in the richer you are
Sounds like real life The richer get richer...the poorer get poorer

Absolutely Kandi the richer will get richer and the poor will get poorer until the poor are so poor that they can't afford to buy anything from the rich....not sure what will happen after that. Oh how I miss the SL that didn't mirror my RL so much.




I know how to build but I'm such a perfectionist that it takes me forever to get anything done....for example I started work on a prefab house tonight and I spent 4 hours and only have the basic framework and exterior textures done. It just take soooo long and I very rarely have a free 4 hours to spend on something.

I will be glad when the ratings bonus is gone entirely.

I don't have a purchased skin. I don't wear purchased clothes. I don't wear purchased attachments. I have no purchased gadgets other than inexpensive things like the Ringmaker. In fact, the very few purchases I've made were made primarily for non-personal reasons (e.g. I once bought an emote after someone IM'd me that they had been ripped off... so I bought one, tried to figure out the problem, then helped them resolve it - after which I gave the emote away).

Am I poor? I don't feel poor. Perhaps one of the things we need to dispense with in a virtual world is our standard (abusive) use of that word. Our av's don't go hungry. Require no shelter. Aren't prevented from using the tools or from learning. Just because someone can't acquire the things around them doesn't make them poor, imo.



Based on this comment, it sounds as though you believe me to not be a perfectionist. It's a shame you're reluctant to learn just how far from the truth that is.

I showed someone some tricks the other night; ways to speed their building and have perfect alignment. Their time will drop from hours to minutes. Perfection does not always require time. The real issue here imo is efficiency.

The offer stands.

[edit: btw, raising upload fees will likely hurt small businesses who offer competition to large ones which helps to drive down prices; hurting them will likely hurt regular consumers as competition declines and prices rise as those remaining pass on their costs.]