End the Stipends....just a thought..

If linden Labs ended the stipend system, which they definately will sooner of later that would allow them to put extra money and resources into Customer Service.

I know taking away the free money is a bad vib totally, but I, speaking only for myself would gladly give up the stipend for a better CS experience, and that money saved could accomplish that goal

Um, no no no please dont encourage this idea. You giving up your stippened might not affect you much, but others that dont purchase any additional lindens (how they resist I will never know) are only able to shop because they have gone premium and have that weekly change tossed in their pockets.

If stippened was to end completely I think we would see a large decrease in sales. I know I saw a slight increase when everyone got that added amount this week. Taking it away would be a large hit on the economy, but thats just my thought on it.

They dont buy those lindens in order to pay the stipends, they print them.

In addition they sell Lindens already to inflate the economy and keep Linden Prices stable.

I dont see where ending Stipends results in LL getting money directly. I could be wrong though.

I think it would be with the assumption that everyone that receives a stippened would instead purchase the lindens instead...which isnt exactly true. Some might, but most would just end up with nothing to spend.

Im not positive, but I dont think LL just creates L$ out of empty air. You have to use RL as a base model, and everyone knows that a goverment cant just print money or else it becomes valuless, I would rather think that LL does special accouting and actually has that money in hold, if they didnt they would run a risk of everyone selling and cashing out and vitually bankrupting their Vitual community.

I dont know know I seen Heretic Linden talking on these forums, maybe he can shed light on how Linden Labs actually accounts for the Lindens released ingame. But I would think that they dont just create it

flame bait and wrong forum.

But Most of Lindens people buy are from other Residents. Linden labs only gets a small cut of that.

I was always under the beleif stipends have been reduced like they were to Control Inflation - Not to make the Lindens money.

Oh no I completely agree, I was just posting an assumption that may have gone with the thinking of the OP. I simply just dont see how taking the stippened away would give an increase in funding to LL for customer service.

I use my stipend money as "upload resourses" every month. I know it's roughly $2 US, but I like the fact that things I make don't cost me anything if I stick with this system. When I first started, though, my stipend was treat day. I'd buy something I'd been waiting for all month like a set of textures or some FAB building tool. I would definitely not be where I am now as far as the SL learning curve goes with out the stipend incentive. I also feel that I pay for my service with my monthly tier. I went premium right away, so have always paid my taxes. Don't take away my return!

LOL. The expert speaks!

Are you High?

Please feel free to donate you stipend to any cause you like. I personaly would like to keep mine.

I think alot of the opinions here are really stated becuase we really dont know the process of how a L$ comes into second life...is it created out of thin air? or is it collected from another source like classied ads, inwhich case it is a value item. and does have real monetary value in SL

LL doesn't need to hold the real money equivalent of that L$ because it never buys L$. It's also not possible for everyone to sell out their L$ because for every L$ sold, you need someone else to buy it. The worst that would happen is that the value of the L$ would crash and you get massive inflation. LL has a policy of some stability in the linden market, which they manage with sinks and sources - sources in this case basically being stipends and supply linden sales. If you take away stipends, then supply linden has to sell more to keep the lindex on an even keel. LL ends up making more off supply linden, and less off membership costs as ppl decide it's not worth it.

I think its a bunch if linden lab employes out on some unknown region digging up gold that they can turn into currency for us. BLAST them for stealing those regions and not letting us in on the wealth!! *shakes a fist*

So, by this thought you are thinkin that maybe lets say...Mr Money Giving Linden sits and collects all the money from classifieds and then makes stippened payments with that money. If Mr Money would stop that, the funds could be turned into USD and spent on more staff for customer service. Aw, but then Mr Money would be out of a job.


All kidding aside, its a bad idea...bad bad...make it go away, please please. Why take away one of the few remaining incentives to going premium? L$ comes into the world because LL created it, in my mind I see them with an endless pot that they can hand out L$ from without it hurting them. Its not going to stop people that want more from buying more (since it isnt that much per person anyway) and it isnt going to stop fees for land, purchasing land, uploads etc. Taking it away isnt going to ensure that those L$ will be purchased somewhere else and with them not being spent, small businesses might have to close down, the people they rent from might not get enough renters and have to sell their land, the people buying land might stop buying...ok I could go on but this is going to extremes already...just saying, bad, make it stop

LL does indeed porint L$ out of thin air, all you do is have to look at the economic statistics to show that.

With the explosive growth of the population, LL has to inject more money into the economy or else there would be a severe shortage of money. Think about it, do you think SL has the same amount of money floating around now as when it had 1 million residents, or 40,000?

So on that note, ending stipends has nothing to do with money coming out of the company pocket, save for the small percentage that Supply Linden would sell on the open market as some residents fill the hole in their pocket left by not getting thier weekly handout.

Also there is no need to speculate or guess, LL has given us comprehensive economic stats for ages now and the link is right on the front page:

http://www.secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php

In April, LL handed out about 300 million more L$ than it received, all right out of thin air.

You know its on these calm and rational thread topics that it would really be nice to have a Linden speaking on, but... they havent got the L$ to log in cause everyone got a raise on thier stipends

Honestly its silly to have to pay premium membership to get stipends, this is robbing peter to pay...peter. Now I know they have to attach some value onto premium memberships, but in essence stipends are nothing more than a rebate on what you already paid in as a premium member so your not getting back anything that wasnt yours already. That to me sounds like.... like.... well just not rational

Not true at all, your not taking into account the bulk of LindenLabs money, sale of auctions and private sims

40 million meters of land auctions off
1154 Private islands established

You don't pay premiun to get stipends, you pay premium to be able to buy land. The stipend is a perk of premium. There used to be a time when you could pay the annual premium cost ($72US) and the conversion for the L$26000 in stipend you got actually offset the cost of the account (right now at L$267/$1US, you would reap about $97US from selling your stipends over a year) , but LL finally got wise to it and reduced the stipend to stop making that game profitable.

Don't worry you will get your wish one day.
This is the history of stipends as I know it (not necessarily in the correct order):

They eliminated the stipend bonus for ratings (I think you used to be able to get up to L$1500 a week)
They reduced the stipend for premium to L$400
They elliminated the free account stipend (was L$50)
They reduced the stipend for premium to L$300

What does the future hold? You can speculate on that, but I would say within a year, stipends will disappear completely.

Those are sold in US$ not L$, so you are arguing apples and oranges.
We are talking about where L$ come from, land sales hava nothing to do with it, no L$ are received from land sales.

EDIT: I shouldn't say no L$ are received, in the economic stats there is a sink of about L$3,000,000 for sales of land for L$, but that is taken into account in the figures I have used previously.

You dont "have" to pay premium to get stipends, its a benefit "of" paying premium. It used to be that any account would get 50L weekly, premium or not, but that went away when...well, about the time when verified accounts went away wasnt it? In a way, in my mind, paying premium is like purchasing the lindens and the right to own land. If the only thing you got for being premium was the lindens, then it would be silly as you can just buy lindens without being premium. Now, imagine how THAT would change SL...if you could only purchase lindens with a premium account.

When you look at it, if you took away the stippend, being premium gives you NO added benefits except being able to own land and be billed by LL for tier. Its not as if they are giving you anything else but the ability to pay them more money lol. So, if for the $6-$10 you are giving monthly you get a couple bucks worth of lindens (lets be honest, it isnt a lot - 300L weekly = $4.80, 400=$6.30, 500=$7.80 at the current purchase rate), they are already making money on the deal on all new premiums and if you are paying monthly, on ALL premiums. Take it away and those that are only premium for the lindens or to own land might sell off their land, go rent and end their premium membership... LL could even lose money. Poor LL.

Not really, when you buy Lindens you have to pay USD for them, the 2 are interchangable in every aspect, and besides the fact that smaller land auctions are in L$ and not USD


No the more I think about it the more Im sure that LL has some accountibility for releasing L$ into SL, they wouldnt build thier economic value off a artificial base that can inject any amount of money into the economy for no reason at all

It would be worthwhile to also read the archived Land and Economy forum, this stuff was disected to the molecular level a million times in there.

Take my pocket money away?! But I washed the dishes and mowed the lawn this week!

HAHAHAHA!

Please, you left spots all over those dishes and didnt even trim back the trees. No new outfit for you!