The L$ is Sick

GOM prices are set by those who sell $L. When you are selling on GOM you set your price, lower prices mean fast sale, higher prices mean slow sales or no sales. Sellers want to get as much as possible, but if they can sell much faster by lowering the price by 1 or 2 cents to be on top of the board, most will do it. When all the cheap $L is sold off only the more expensive is left causing the increase in price. On those days where there are many sellers and few buyers of course prices for $L will fall. On days where everyone is buying the price will naturally increase as the cheaper $L on gom's board are quickly sold off. New sellers look at the board and set their price to match or beat the best prices, if they are in a hurry to sell.

All that said, I wouldn't be concerned with 1.7% fluctuations, in fact I would expect some fluctuations to be up to 5% or even more. If the price of $L goes down under 10% for a month or so I might think an adjustment in fees and taxes could be increased to slow devaluation of the $L.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I get paid in cold, hard cash.

Ah, but USD or Euros? Tee hee hee... seems the same problems affect them, too.

Hmm, "all of the above". So far, GBP, USD and EUR.

I sometimes get the feeling in reading GOM-related posts that, current prices aside, many people react to a simple glance at the GOM page, quickly comparing the relative length of the buy and sell columns.

We should keep in mind when trying to evaluate all of this, that these columns can be a bit deceiving --
A very long column of sell orders next to a relatively short column of buy orders doesn't reflect the number of *people* selling/buying. It reflects the number of orders.
Similarly, the column lengths do not give a good comparison of the total *amount* of L$ wanted to buy compared to the total amount wanted to sell.

Looking just at column lengths in GOM recently, it would appear everyone's selling and nobody wants to buy. The actual totals at roughly noon today were:

L$ Buy Column: 2591k (37% of total)
L$ Sell Column: 4437K (63% of total)

Total Buy Orders: 159 (28% of total)
Total Sell Orders: 402 (72% of total)

Whenever I've ported a GOM page into Excel, the split of total L$ on the block is usually around 40% Buy to 60% Sell -- not far from what it is now.

There's an overall movement to sell and a resistance to buy right now, but not extravagantly so IMHO.

All this talk about L$ fluxuations makes me really want to know what happened to Alby Yellowknife. He lived and breathed this stuff. He should have posted at least 20 times in this thread by now.

He still posts on the GOM forum, though I've yet to see his presence here.

Whachu talkin bout Barbarra?

I'm not all that concerned. It's all just pretty little waves. Sometimes we're up, sometimes we're down. Once we hit the bottom we'll coast up again very comfortably until something else inspires another downward trend. The crest sure was fun while it lasted, though.



SL is not a game. TSO is a game. TSO has developers who are paid a nice monthly salary in USD. SL has people like me who get paid in L$.

Want us all to go away?

Its simple economics, not reason for panic. Markets correct themselfs I dont see reason to be concerned.

Ooooook, so the $L falls, the developers go away along with it? So.... if people can't make money off of a game..

I'm not gonna start prancing about the beta days, but actually, with no RL $US involved back then, developers for SL made leaps and bounds. But the $L isn't actually where the developers make the money anyway, so why bring them up?

I develop, I don't get paid huge sums of money doing it. I do it, just to build, not for the sake of money. I don't see what the hype is.

Sick ? Sick is a market that doesn't correct itself. I'd like to see it testing at 3.75 values before there's a "something" wrong signal.

My point wasn't that developers would go away because the Linden is doing its little mambo. I'm not terribly worried about market fluctuations.

The point was that removal of reward for effort will decrease the incentive for development. I know that all of my formal product development has been encouraged by my appreciation of business. Without the possibility for reward, I would still develop things, but only for my own personal use.

The point was that some people don't want money tied up with this "game." I can understand that, though. As a child, I often wondered myself why things couldn't be free.

"I wish there were no such thing as money," I declared.

"How would I pay for our food?"

"I don't know. You wouldn't need to," I decided.

"What about the person who needs to sell the food so he can buy food for his little boy? And where would he get the stuff to make more food for us to buy next week?"

"Oh," I said, chewing over my new perspective.

People are so used to using 3D environments and computer monitors for games that it's easy to overlook the fact that, well, we simply don't have a game here. We have an interactive environment in which many people spend their free time developing tools and toys for use within that environment. They depend on a just reward for time spent in order to keep creating new stuff and justify the creation of old stuff. Without rewards, many would still participate, but they'd be motivated by themselves, and not customers. The market (not that it would even exist anymore) would be much, much less interesting.

But I know how it feels to try to use "because I want it" as a medium of exchange.

You'll probably get your wish.

And THIS time you cant blame event support now can you

In reply to this "Looking just at column lengths in GOM recently, it would appear everyone's selling and nobody wants to buy..."

When I buy $L on gom I don't post an ad, I just pick one of the ads selling and hit buy. So what is on the buy board wouldn't bother me at all. I never look at the sell v. buy to guess what's going on, I look at the prices and also try to watch how fast the sell ads are disappearing. I look at the transaction load, if there are lot's of transactions and prices are falling I assume people are selling out for that moment in time.

The best way to veiw a currency exchange( $L to the $us is just like the Yen to the $us, just another currency exchange) is in the longer term, watching trends. The USA adjusts interest rates and other changes to the economy to control the value of the dollar compared to other currencies. But before any major changes are taken into consideration, the trend to a lower or higer value must be tracked over time. Then the adjustments are small so as not to upset the entire economy. The value of the dollar varies day to day, sometimes dramatically, losing or gaining value over a short period. Often these spikes are due to spectulation. People deal in currency on the expectation of values changing in their favor. You might do it here, buying more $L than you can use because you hope the value increases. Or maybe you sell too much when you get nervous the prices are falling. These kind of spectulations can cause a market to flip flop. When the ship looks like it's sinking everyone jumps off, causing the value to drop even faster, when it looks like prices for $L are climbing people buy up $L causing the prices to increase even more.

Well, that's the way I see it anyhow, but what the heck do I know lol

Again:

But what I meant was - if I bought my own land, from Lindens, and paid tier on it, I would pay them in real dollars.

When I rent, I have to come up with Lindens. Which means I either make them myself (as I have so far), or I buy them from GOM.

So - buy from Lindens = no GOM activity in terms of buying Lindens

Rent = more GOM activity in terms of buying Lindens

Am I not correct about that?

The more renters like me, the more money gets bought from GOM.

coco

That seems right to me seeing the value of the Linden on GOM go up and down over the last year or so. 3.70 is getting low. I think if it hits 3.30 it is surely time to buy if it seems people are panic selling and there is no good reason for it.

I remember not too long ago 1000 L$ would go for more then $5.00. Prices fell. But I also remember a time before that that 1000 L$ would go for less then $4.00. Prices then rose. So you want to know what will happen in the future? One of three things will happen. 1) Prices will continue to fall until you have to pay people to take your lindens, 2) Prices will rise and fall as SL changes, or 3) LL desides to close SL and the market goes *POOF* Take your pick on what will happen, but I think one chose is a little better then the rest.

It's like the laws of thermodynamics:

- You can't win
- You can't break even
- You can't get outta the game

<grin>

As an engineer, what are you talking about??? I think I am missing something in your statement, could you explain it to me please. Or maybe I should have paid more attetion in class, but I really don't remember any of these rules

Energy can be transferred, but not created or destroyed (You can't win.)

If no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy will be less than the initial state (You can't break even.)

Absolute zero can never be reached (You can't get out of the game.)

AH!!!! It all makes sense now. Thanks for clearing it up for me... I guess I really should have paid more attention in class.

OK - I'm going to take that as a yes, that my idea about renting and consequently more need for buying Lindens on GOM is correct.

coco