The new SL with lower ratings and stipend

Ok i havent really noticed this before cause i make and sell items.

Just noticed how low of a stipend and now bonus i get.

Stipend 50
Bonus (Total Rating) 38
= 88L$

Look in 3 weeks i can get that Outfit i wanted..maybe.

So what comes next ..taxes again? Oh wait i can rate 1 person per week. or take 8 pictures.

This is a 10$ account thou now so i guess they want everyone to upgrade but how
many 10$ accounts are there.

Yes there are ways to get money without selling stuff.....but why are people being forced to attend events or make stuff to sell.. some people just dont have the time they just want to enjoy.


..any comments? this has probably been discussed to death but here ya go.

Ratings sigh

When content creators realize their stuff isn't selling, they will lower their prices to compensate. If they don't, they'll soon be seen as "expensive" and thus unshoppable.

The wonders of a free market never cease.

LF

no comment other than 1) nothings forced and 2) i got friends on basic accounts who don't work or go to events and still can buy things now and then. if it takes shopping sprees every day to make sl fun than yeah disapointment city. if you can say "this is how it is and i got to budget my free money LL gives me" than you'll prolly be fine.

bleh. this subject has been engraved on the tip of a drill and drilled into the core of the earth and out the other side already. lemme suggest that sl would be alot more fun if we could all move on to fun things. unless talking about this is fun for you in which case seek help.

Hey Tip where were you the last two weeks this was discussed...Hmmm??

hahaha

You're not being forced to do anything. For those that want to try to play the economic game of SL and try to convert real world skill into L$, the tools are provided to do just that. For those that don't want to do that or don't have the time there are three choices... 1) convert to a monthly account thereby helping subsidize Linden development. 2) buy L$ with US$ thereby subsidizing player development, or 3) accept that a one time fee of $10 only buys you the ability to socialize and window shop.

off topic but Chip i had to say your new forum avi is so cute. it looks like my reaction to the Off Topic forum most days.

What Chip is saying in a nutshell is you can either contribute to the Linden plan of making the L$ worth a whole lot more by buying it, or you can pay LL for an account that would let you have more money each week. The SL trend over the past two years has been, "If you have more money in real life, you will prosper in Second Life." It gels a little bit more each season but very few people point fingers at it.

Hell, I remember when Ms. Cotton spoke out against all this a year ago and she was basically ousted from SL (or, at least, the forums). I'll admit I even took part in pointing fingers at her and bitching about her crying wolf. But look, the game sucks now if you're poor in real life. So, I totally agree with her... and I'm going to speak out about it until I get ousted just the same (I know it will happen because there's always followers of this creepy capitalistic regieme.)

I agree, but i'm too hungry right now to post something substantial. Maybe later after I get dinner.

doesn't real life kinda suck if you're poor in real life? it's the nature of a world where everything isn't free i guess.

really tho i think it comes down to this. if you have a materialistic world view and you don't have material things you'll make yourself unhappy. that's true irl and in sl. if you can get beyond material things you can be happy no matter what. course all this assumes that no money in sl = no fun in sl but everything i see every day says that's not true.

i dunno how people with no money in sl can make themselves unhappy. first you get free money from LL no matter what account you have and second you have god like power at your fingers to make things out of nothing. if irl was like sl poor starving countries could just whip up some food out of nowhere and problem solved. you live in a slum? build a mansion. your car's a beater? make it a limo.

but i guess not everyone is born with the skills to do that in sl. well yeah......skills take work. so it comes back to world view. do you want to put some effort into making things better for yourself (effort that is actually *gasp* fun and doesn't cost anything and isn't forced and doesn't have an asshole boss screaming at you) or do you want everthing right now with no "payment" of money or time or effort?

so bottomline for me if your world view says i want everything right now and i don't want to give anything for it and if i don't get it i'll make myself unhappy......yeah sl sucks for you. so does irl if you don't get what you want. for everybody else well sl is the magic kingdom.

Daemioth,

<<Hell, I remember when Ms. Cotton spoke out against all this a year ago and she was basically ousted from SL (or, at least, the forums). I'll admit I even took part in pointing fingers at her and bitching about her crying wolf. But look, the game sucks now if you're poor in real life. So, I totally agree with her... and I'm going to speak out about it until I get ousted just the same (I know it will happen because there's always followers of this creepy capitalistic regieme.)>>

Indeed. She was virtually the only one who saw the way things were headed.

The ironic thing is that when she posts anything on these forums even now, you can be sure that some idiot will immediately insult her.

Well said Daemioth - I wish some of the other players had your humility.

I disagree. Even if you're poor in real life (or a broke-ass college student), you still have some sort of entertainment budget (movies, video games, etc.)

If you take even a small amount from an existing hobby/budget (say 15 a month, which is about a movie a month at the theatre after popcorn and whatnot), you can have a substantial piece of land, a stipend (500 bucks + whatever ratings you get), and the opportunity to develop your own piece of property for whatever gain you wish.

Heck, at current rates...

500 a week * 4 = 2000 lindens a month = ~$US 8.00 a month in recurring stipend fees. So really, SL is a steal for 2 dollars a month.

Of course, if you sold even a small amount of stuff, or attended an event or two, you can drive the price down to zero, or even turn a very small profit.

Or, if you enjoy the economic game, you can really crank up the heat and work your butt off, and eventually SL might pay for itself and then some.

Or don't, and still get an easily-subsidized hobby for teh cheeps.

LF

Hey, I resemble that remark.

Let's see...

In SL, with a basic account, I can:

Fly
Visit & chat with friends
Meet new friends
Attend events
Change/make clothes with the textures available in the library and freebies people have out
Build wonderful wacky things in the sandboxes
Attempt to script those wacky things in the sandboxes (the ones that allow it)
Be a tourist and visit every mainland and island sim and all the interesting builds and people


So I get less of a stipend now, big deal.


*and no I don't think Catherine Cotton was correct about changes being bad for SL. I think some people's attitudes about SL are bad.

Careful folks, you may end up bitching SL into submission, and cause people to think SL isn't a kick-ass world to live in. All this bitching about nothing is tiring and a waste of our community's collective time and essence.

Sit back, relax, and have fun like we used to back in the earlier days of SL.

I don't wear clothing in real life with advertisement logos and I don't wear them in the forums, either. If something sucks, I'm not about to sit around and let it suck. Especially when what's sucking used to be something that was very, very awesome. Again, I'm not on the Linden agenda of promoting SL; the more they try to promote their currency and the capital within and outside SL, the more this product reeks of rot to me.



It was a different game back then.



Remember, you're talking to a player of a year and a half who has walked the walk of SL and shown the ropes to hundreds of players. I don't need a, "Work harder and you'll be skilled," speech; I'm not fighting for who you would call the lazy or the uneducated--I'm fighting against something different entirely. If you can't see that, then that's your blind eye, not mine.



And... thank you for that, Selador!! Lately, I have worried that I was the only oldbie left who remembered.

i dont feel so poor its curious , i am a basic account still

The day we stop having fun in SL is the day SL stops being a successfull experiment in the metaverse. LL wants this to be a fun place as much as we do, so I seriously doubt thier plan is to drive away new accounts. They do need to turn a profit in order to maintain an ever-growing world. We are all investing (time, money, both, etc.) in this world in one form or another. It's a complex dynamic. I'm sure Alan Greenspan would find all this amusing

That's because rather than reasonably describe her concerns, she melted down and spewed nothing but vitriol all over the forum. When she had driven things to a fevered pitch, she vowed that she was leaving the world forever, and then accused a bunch of innocent people of personally tormenting her. Then she returned, and expected everyone to forget the way she behaved.

But let's not focus on her behavior. The more important issue is whether or not the changes are unwelcome. Though of course it is sad that the basic accounts are now of extremely limited value, it is completely understandable from a financial standpoint. The basic accounts do not offer LL continuous revenue, but the owners of these accounts still consume a very large amount of bandwidth. For SL to become successful, it is necessary for them to begin focusing on their long-term survival. The novelty has worn off, and it's now time to begin earnestly trying to make their business sustainable. One of the easiest and most logical things to do is to devalue the basic accounts, because most of these account holders are costing the company more in bandwidth costs than they are receiving in payment. Though some of these account holders also pay tier, these account holders are not numerous enough to make much difference. Under the old system, basic account holders had almost no incentive to purchase a premium account. In the world of masively-multiplayer online games, there are tremendous infrastructural and incidental expenses which must be recouped. The cost of bandwidth alone is staggering. This is why almost all MMO games require monthly fees.

You are free to argue that LL's desire to actually succeed as a business runs contrary to your own vision of what SL should be. It's actually very likely. Unfortunately, SL is no longer beta, and so it is now time for the world to mature. I would (and do) willingly sacrifice $9.99 a month to engage in an activity which I enjoy, for without funding, this is all but a fleeting experiment which must inevitably be terminated.

I usually don't bother to post on this topic, but I happened to run the numbers in my head the other night, and I thought I'd post them here, just for amusement's sake:

Cost of my quarterly account: US$7.50/month * 3 months = US$22.50
Amount of my stipend per quarter: L$500/week * 13 weeks/quarter = L$6500/quarter

Going rate of exchange - varies, but for talking purposes, let's say about US$4/L$1000
So my stipend comes to somewhere around US$26/quarter.

Near as I can tell, LL is paying me to play their game. Very little that I want to do costs $L. (I realize that this is not true for everyone -- see below.) They make their money off of my occasional texture uploads, looks like, and the fact that I pay to advertise my land at the moment because it has a money tree on it and I want new folks to be able to find it.

I've posted elsewhere that I'm a socialist, and I am, but I'm also a realist (and despite what some people may think, these two positions are compatable.) Servers cost money to buy, and money to run. The programmers need to be paid. The support staff need to be paid (and I doubt they are being paid anywhere near enough). Likely LL is still running at a loss, which can't go on forever. I really don't want to see in-world advertising like ActiveWorlds has.

TANSTAAFL. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Despite that, LL is already giving out free lunch and afternoon tea besides, both to Basic and Premium account holders. Hopefully there are enough "sinks" in the game to keep LL solvent, because their general fee/stipend structure isn't doing it -- and you can't count what residents pay other residents, because LL doesn't get that money, either.

What's the annual discounted fee -- US$72/year? About the cost of a new computer game, right? And in that year, you'll pull in about US$130 worth of stipend, whether you log in or not. Can you think of another computer game that you can play for a year, with new content guaranteed every day, and the ability to add your own content-- and sell your content, if you're so inclined-- and get your entire purchase price back by the end of the year, if you decide not to play, nearly times 2?

Let's also consider that the quality of computer and network connection you need in order to play SL rather suggests that SL subscribers are not doing that badly in RL.

I appreciate that some people don't enjoy sitting around in sandboxes building, or flying around exploring/window shopping, which are the free activities I enjoy most. I am not suggesting, as some apparently have, that everyone get a "job" in SL. I do the stuff I do in SL because it's fun, not to make $L, and I think everyone ought to be able to have fun in SL. But if part of "fun" for you is being able to buy things, and you need more than L$50/week to enjoy SL, I strongly advise you to upgrade to a Premium account. And if you really feel you can't afford that, get a discounted annual account and cash in half of your Premium stipend. You'll pay no more than you're paying for the Basic account over the course of the year, and you'll have 5 times the L$ to throw around as you would have had with a Basic account, with no rates or event payments (or dwell) involved. And you'll be able to own land on top of that.

neko

As much as I loved to get rated and get the money for it...
...you have to admit, it is such a relief to go to a club and not have to search for the person that just rated you.

Yet on the other hand, I think the lindens need to think of a money making system a little better then this one. Not everyone can be awesome builders and scripters...

...which is where the $US 10 lifetime membership comes into play.

People who use their accounts a lot are more likely to buy into a premium memberhsip (you know, to finally have a house of their own after spending many nights in the club VIP room), hiring the content creators to make them their dream home.

THere's spots for everybody.

LF

Daemioth, we're talking about a one time fee of $10 here for crying out loud. 10 @#&%@! dollars one time and then paying nothing again... ever! People really need to get some perspective. There's a difference between being poor in real life and expecting everything to be handed to you. SL is even cooler now than it was back in that almost imaginary "glory days." There's more people by several orders of magnitude, more features, more amazing content that doesn't cost anything and that's far more plentiful than it was back then... and all of this can be enjoyed for a measly one time fee of $10... and yet people complain that SL is only for the rich or that money somehow spolied it. Not to put too fine a point on it, but, that's bordering on delusional in my opinion. Yes, the money aspect of SL has attracted some unsavory behavior, but it's also attracted so many good things that they overshadow the bad by miles. I don't know what SL you're playing in these days but it doesn't seem to be the same one I'm spending my time in... and that has nothing whatsoever to do with my own economic success or lack thereof in my first or second lives. The changes over time have brought a ton of great things... but they've also brought one really corrosive element. It's not the money, tier fees, ratings, people, or anything like that... it's the pessimistic overwhelmingly negative attitude of some people who seem to hate change no matter what form it takes. If you choose to look at things through doom colored glasses chances are that's what you're going to see. Back in the old days if you wanted to maintain anything in world you had to bust your ass to make enough money to cover taxes. If you didn't have the time or the skills you were pretty much out of luck. Everything still cost money back then if I recall. Now, for people who don't want to have a "Second Job(tm)" or don't have tons of time to play, they can just tier up knowing exactly what they'll get. If they want more L$ they can pay the very reasonable exchange rate at GOM or IGE. SL is easier now, not harder... and it's more creative than ever. If there's a rotting smell you're getting, be sure which side of the screen it's coming from. There's a good chance it might not be SL.

hehe thanks Zuzi I thought it looked like how I feel in the General forum most days