Fix the Economy

How to fix the economy ( examine the system not the numbers )

1. Loose the Voting booth.
2. Loose the Rating System.

Everyone start out with a base stipend of 1000.00 / Week.
Everything you purchase from another player is already tracked.
Everything purchased from another player is refunded to you at the next pay period, up to your max stipend of 1000.00 / week.

I own land and a small house. My total tax is 750.00 / week.

I have 250.00 left over after paying tax. I can horde it or blow it all.
I choose to keep it.
At the end of next pay cycle I have 500.00 after paying taxes.

I choose to blow it all on buying crap from my friends.
My tax is 750.00 - 250.00 = 500.00.
At the end of the next pay cycle I have 500.00 after paying taxes.

Instead of rating people you buy crap from them.
Newbies since not established and have no tax will be a major contributer to the economy.

Xavier

That's not an economy it's a wellfair state. People have to feel they can profit from their works.
Everyone here gets a say on how the sim will look and the rating system and voting booths play a part in that. Build something everyone loves and your higher ratings and votes help to pay for it. If you take away that there will be no large scale building projects. Build something everyone hates, get no votes, sooner or later you have to take it down. If you really want to build something that noone likes the game will pay for it, but you'll have to keep it small.

If people feel they won't make money from there creative efforts they won't take the trouble to make anything creative.

Your system would having people running around buying things they don't really want just to help support there friends. I can see how long that would last.

Maxen,

The voting booths work in part the way you mention, but not for the major part, imho. The booths also work similarly to the way you think the "pay-day system" Xavier has described will.

What is the difference if I vote for someone, or buy something from them, either way, I am supporting them, they are gaining money through my efforts.

And what is the difference if someone creates something I buy, or a builds a project that I vote for? Either way it is a creative effort that I support.

I was in world before the voting booths and there were large scale projects. Ask Charlie Omega....

I think if people had more, they would spend more. How about a goodly hunk of $ for each player to get the economy rolling. Like a tax refund sum of $50,000.00 each. Then put into place a payday-like system that Xavier mentioned.


fen-

Because it takes maybe 5 seconds (lag willing) to vote for somebody, and you can do it day by day. True, it is welfare of sorts, but people would be more willing to vote and rate their friends than buy something from them. The voting booths and ratings just increase the welfare amounts (shallow though it sounds). It also means something. True, I wont say I'm above the financial incentive of the current voting and rating system, but I also find that it is reletively nice to find that even a few people took the time to validate (in some small way) some of my rather hairbrained ideas. More importantly though, it does allow me to experiement with different ideas, even if half of them collapse before they really begin. Keep the voting and rating because they are the SL equivalent of Government Work Programs (New Deal, FDR). True, it doesnt work for everybody, but any major project you start, a single voting station can make a world of difference. If I were slightly more stupid and shallow, I would have established a shrine to whatever Diety controlls voting (hehe), but as it stands now, I just thank God (not really religion oreinted though) for the kindness and tolerance people have shown me in SL, especially when it comes to these voting and rating bonuses (and lack of verbal abuse, lol)

If they serve the same purpose why buy objects? Why assume the economy must be through the buying and selling of objects Since owning objects has so little meaning here why put any value in it?

An economy is first built on things that are truely needed. What do you really need in a virtual world? What has real value here?

I think one of the problems here is people trying to mimic the economy on the real world. I don't mean how the economy works but by what drives it.

In RL there are real needs, Food and Shelter, being the most important. Everything that goes beyond the basics is to show wealth and status.

Basic needs in SL are computer resources. This is what food and shelter are here, and in SL these basics are supplied to us.

Wealth and Status come from skills, not what objects you own.

So a true functioning economy in SL will centre around skills. So far the voting system is more effective at doing this than the buying and selling of objects.

I think it may be awhile before a true functioning enconomy developes here.

they are the SL equivalent of Government Work Programs (New Deal, FDR). Good anology.

I am grateful for the booths and the support from inworld friends and neighbors. And I also enjoy supporting my inworld friends and acquaintances by voting.

I often fly around and vote for any booth I see. One evening before Lindenburg rezed completely for me, I was able to long distance vote for almost every booth in town. Now that was cool....

There definitely should be someway of rewarding and validating creativity well done inworld and none of us want to be unable to support our inworld project, but it does seem like the economy needs some tweaking.

In RL there was an already established world from which we all created our RL economy. Here we are doing it completely from scratch. Which is why I suggested a large lump sum to get things rolling. Not that I ever expect that to happen.

fen-

It'll be very interesting to see what people will truely want to spend money on in game and how the economy developes over time.

I think most people dont buy very many things, they prefer to build it, cheaper and it looks just how you want.

Things will become much more interesting when there are more cool things to buy. Right now, there isn't much, there are a few costume shops, and some simple scripted objects you can buy, but there aren't a whole lot of real cool useful objects for sale (that I have seen). Also services, such as scripting, building, and texturing, for people how want some object made, but don't have the skills required, will make the economy more active.

The problem is that with a user driven game like this, people have to volunteer their time to make this stuff, and for me, the L$ are not that big an insentive. In order for this to be an insentive we must have *less* money :: ducks ::, or have a L$->R$ system (this only works once we start paying subscription fees, since I'm sure Linden doesn't want to write checks to their beta testers, hehe)

-Pat Murphy

I have 2 major problems when I get the urge to go shopping, which is more and more frequent, as more and more people come in:

1) my perception of the 2 best known shopping spots is Lindenberg and the avatar store. Both are so laggy I can barely move, and I give up before I have seen everything for sale.

2) in general, I don't know what all people are selling, or where they are selling it, and I don't know how to find out.


Would be great to have a list, including location, of what is for sale, who sells it, and where we could find it. I'd be happy to add a section to my website for this, and people could add in notes on new items they have made, screenshots of things they've made, any special sales they're having, etc. Could also have your own page advertising your items for sale. If anyone is interested let me know. It would be a freebie, so long as people provide info and updates in a format I could just cut and paste.

Thanks -
Kerstin

Ok, here's a problem


Can I build well? nope. Not like Val or Nexus. Will I ever? Sure thing. A month ago when I came into SL I built a house - the frame wasnt matched, it was all windows so that I could use big large pieces and not have to worry about it - it was two story with a hole in the floor because that way I didnt have to build stairs.

Tracey took one look at it and.....was kind.

It was junk. I tore it down, started working again - this time on a castle - I wanted stair and sweated for 4 days till I got a method down that worked for me. it was big, round towers, square house -- ugly.

I tore it down, built another. tore it down built another. Built a travel trailer - to learn to work on small projects.

Then I built my volcano island. People loved my attention to detail.

Am I a good builder? nope - but I'm getting there.

People coming into SL are going to be much the same. They may see - admire - and sometimes even buy. But many of them are gonna wanna do it themselves. Will they be as good as the veterans? nope - but they *will* be. with time, with practice.

And that's a wonderful part of the charm of SL. learning to do it on your own. Learning to stretch your creative talent. Someone else might have a great car - but if you see it, I bet you can think of a dozen ways *you* would make it better.

Wanting to sell things in SL is wonderful, but not very realistic. You have a dozen textures? so what, I got a 10,000 more off the internet.

Someone had some cut stone texture/objects for sale - it was nice - I wanted some - and they wanted way too much for them. Rather than pay them, I took 3 minutes on the internet, and found better.

the only area where there are no shortcuts is scripting. but even that can be learned - or modified, or helped out on. And if worse comes to worse - bought.

Hosting parties, and events makes alot more sense to me than the rest for making money - because thats a service that you dont just create out of your own imagination.. Err yes you can, but they you have to create the guests. People who host are people who create the places for us all to interact.


So build to your hearts desire. And I'll build to mine. *Maybe* I might buy something, probably not. And if you think I am the minority, think again.

The key here is to sell them for less than it costs to upload them.

Cost to upload = $10
Sell for ------------ $5

Put a little note with them saying "please don't share" -- no, not everyone will abide by that, but a lot of people will. If only 3 people purchase a tex from you at the above price, you've profited $5.

Shoot, since the notecards have been improved so much, sell the notecard with the "please don't share this tex" comment, have the texture embedded into the notecard.