WHOA!!! Why do you want to destroy your money?! PLEASE SPEND IT!! (Starving artist)

I second that!

And if new users get poorer, then creators (new and old) will target them. If "the things that cost 10L now cost 50L" you have no guarantee that people will continue buying them.



I think they mean a paying job that is purely within SL, ie does not require use of an RL skill.



The majority of the player base I suspect have paid jobs and play SL as a hobby. That includes some content creators, including some very successful ones. Also creating content does not necessarily make the game more fun for people because of the c/i effect.



The problem is that you do hours of work and feel you want a reward based on hours of work. I on the other hand, as the consumer, am going to judge the value of that work based on what it does for me regardless of how much work it took you to produce it. That's the "reality" as to why artists are so often underpaid in RL: because for most people the experience of looking at a picture is not worth that much even though the picture may have taken months of dedicated work to produce. You need to be careful when wielding the "that's how it is" reality hammer, it can hit you too..

There may or may not be a lot of in-world only in-world jobs in Second Life, but I am one of those providing them in term of sim surveyor jobs. I announced in the Help Wanted forum and my sandbox earlier in the week and have paid for 19 out of the 19 job I offered as of this morning. How do we let people even know such jobs exist if they are to matter? So far everyone has said it was a pretty fun job and I was overpaying at L$1,000 but for me I am trying to get things started and not looking at cost/valu ratio at the moment. But five of the contractors only found out about the job by stumbling across the billboard in the sandbox while the other four came from the forum and in-world classified. Are people even seeking out in-world jobs?

Where did you get this figure from? It sounds made up, frankly, and doesn't strike me as being anywhere near the true ratio.

Just a nitpick Jonas, because I do understand your perspective, and how you use SL... but, if in-world prices go up (and yes I know yours aren't) as a result of L$ devaluation, then 10L won't be worth the same as it was even to you.

Its still 10L, especially in the shop of someone who doesn't use the exchange rate to price objects.

"And if new users get poorer, then creators (new and old) will target them. If "the things that cost 10L now cost 50L" you have no guarantee that people will continue buying them."

If I need a certain profit from my product (to cover tier, etc), and the purchaser desires to buy my product, the rate will have to go up. If the amount of Lindens that the purchaser can buy with their US dollars doubles, and I double my prices, the purchaser sees no increase in expense, and will be happy paying the higher rate (or, at least, should).

The downside, however, is if that doubling occurs too rapidly, the value of the money I earn will drop between the time I earn it and the time I spend it. This will force me to raise my prices ahead of inflation to compensate, fuelling inflation all the more. Likewise, the value of the Lindens the purchaser buys will drop between the time they buy the Lindens and the time they attempt to spend them.

This is why gradual, steady inflation is important; the gradual, steady nature keeps confidence in the value of the currency high, and prevents panic buying/selling (as people know that the money they earn will still be of roughly the same value when they go to spend it), whilst still keeping the incentive for rapid fluidity of expenditure that inflation brings (better to buy and sell now than wait until later, meaning a faster turn-around of capital and, hopefully, more rapid economic growth).

Musuko.

"Its still 10L, especially in the shop of someone who doesn't use the exchange rate to price objects."

Considering tier must be paid, and in US dollars, either by the shopkeeper or the person they rent from, the likelihood of them not caring about the exchange rate is extremely low. Even if they do not care about profit, they are likely to care about expenses.

Musuko.

You can always shop at my place. -I carry my teir in USD and don't sell lindens for it. If theres one, there has to be more.

You are assuming that if the purchaser wants your product, they'll buy it, money no object. That isn't true.

You're also assuming that everyone doubles their prices. If the amount of Lindens that the purchaser can buy with their US dollars doubles, and not every seller doubles their prices, then the sellers who did not increase their prices have effectively reduced them. The buyer may then buy one of their items instead; this depends on how unique your items are and what level of c/i settling the customers are doing.

Also, of course, you do not "need" profit, or tier. And no, you don't need it in order to provide items for others either, since there's always SLEx.

Regarding how many players are new:

When I joined, in Feb of 2005, there were I believe about 35k players.

I remember having a bet with a friend that there would be 100k players by Christmas, and that happened somewhat before Christmas.

Now I see we have 231,000 players.

OK, now if my math is correct (feel free to correct it if it isn't!), this means that:

1. 85% of all players we have now joined later than February of 2005.

Put another way, 85 percent of all players are less than a year and a half old.

2. 43% of all players we have now joined during or later than December of 2005.

43 percent of all players are five months old or less.

coco

P.S. I think that's a terrific idea, Duke!

Now if everyone will go be a consumer instead of burning their lindens it would be great.

Anyhow i think for every linden burning person i see i am gonna hand them a folder with a pile of landmarks of new shops saying here be a consumer don't throw the money out


So yes please stop complaining you have too many lindens or want to burn em and buy from new players shops please! I think if people stopped being wierd about the economy we just might see a change!

"You are assuming that if the purchaser wants your product, they'll buy it, money no object. That isn't true."

Obviously, people will pass on the products if they are priced far too high. But up to a certain level, people are willing to pay for something they really want.

And, might I note, the only way for that surplus of Lindens on Lindex to be bought up and the price to settle is for more players to buy more Lindens, and that will only happen if they are buying more, or if prices rise.

Musuko.

Or if more people are buying. Just putting up prices will not guarantee that people will spend more money. As I mentioned, many non-creators on SL are just settling for whatever they can get, and if prices go up they'll just settle lower.

"As I mentioned, many non-creators on SL are just settling for whatever they can get, and if prices go up they'll just settle lower."

What do you mean?

Musuko.

This doesn't take the land glut into account, and there isn't a thing players can do about that.

coco

why do i keep seeing the assumption pop up that someone playing this game is going to buy fake currency after paying server fees for land and holding accounts?

Anyhow I have no intention of buying currency to buy that car or whatever. If people won't or refuse to circulate the currency they do get via sales, stripends or whatever then i guess i wont have any to spend. For one thing i cant afford it and thought i bought a membership to a game nowhere did it say i was required to buy currency on top of the game in order to play it..

a little much if you ask me and i don't think expecting people to buy currency is going to fix a lindex which in all honesty doesn't actually mean anything if you don't insist on buying currency out of game. The only reason the lindex means so much to people is because they are trying to make money off of it and want to buy and sell lindens. I think this is the one major flaw in the game since history of any other online community type game has proven that buying currency with real world money for use in world has caused games to become a huge mess.

for some reason i see people expecting it to work in this game which as all games has limitations based on the fact that its still only a half arsed fake economy like in any other game i have played...

I've seen a couple of basic "patterns" folks tend to go through when they join SL. Some buy L$ straight away. But far more common are:

a) people who think "i'll see how far I can get for free". They live on their stipend. If the stipend is taken away, they'll live on freebies, and no new L$ will be bought.

b) people who arrive with a dream of what they want. They try to build their dream, if they succeed they have become content creators. If they fail they settle for what they can buy. If they can't afford stuff they're often happy to do without because they were "settling" anyway.

I can't see that taking away the stipend will do much more than make it much harder for new firms to get started. I can't help but notice that most of the anti-stipend campaigners were people with successful established businesses who had an obvious ulterior motive. They got to learn texturing and animating with their weekly stipend, whereas new folks will have to pay them US$ for every failed experiment they make with a texture or bvh - sounds like a clear way to cripple the competition before it starts.

"This doesn't take the land glut into account, and there isn't a thing players can do about that."

Actually, there is; if more players purchased and occupied available land, there would be a reduction in the glut of available land.

"For one thing i cant afford it and thought i bought a membership to a game nowhere did it say i was required to buy currency on top of the game in order to play it.."

Buying stuff isn't required to play the game, just as owning a car isn't required to be British (or American, or whatever). However, if you want the stuff or the car, you have to pay extra. You don't get it by virtue of being a player, or being British (or whatever).

"I can't see that taking away the stipend will do much more than make it much harder for new firms to get started."

With one US dollar (currently) you can get 33 texture uploads, which is more than enough for even the clumsiest content creator (like me) to get a product or two made. In terms of initial business investment this is hardly going to break the bank!

Musuko.

That won't work, Musuko. LL would just create more land. (Of course.)

That is always in their hands.

If you care about other players, and have more money than you know what to do with, then you could do what the original poster suggested, and frequent places and purchase things from those who are just getting started.

This would probably do more to pump up the economy and improve player morale than burning your Lindens would do.

Getting rid of your excess money just so the money you have left will be worth more when you cash it in just doesn't strike me as all that altruistic.

coco

Actually Coco, thats not a bad idea. Give the new guys a bit of incentive to stay, create. The more people buy from them, the more they create, the more they upload, expand, etc. Then they cash out some Lindens, buy some Lindens.... Circulating the currency. And of course, these people have friends (we hope!) and tell their friends what they're doing, so then their friends might try it. Then it begins again.

Just whose idea it was

I shouldn't even take credit for it - since it's King Philip's idea that created the stipend for just this reason....economic stimulation.

Yes, it was Duke's idea!

Any rate, I just can't identify with or have much sympathy for those who have so much money they can afford to just burn it.

Not to mention burning it to make the point that others - who DON'T have money to burn - should not be getting stipends!

So that when they go to sell their excess money (which they will now be able to sell more of), they get more cash from it!

Um, no.

I would have much more sympathy if they were giving all that money they don't need to the players getting started, as Duke suggested. Why not use your money to actually build the economy? That might, in the long run, do more to raise the value of Lindens than this burning thing.

That would really make a lot of people enthusiastic about creating. You would be subsidizing those businesses you think are doing the most for SL.

That would be SUCH a good thing! It would create a never-ending ripple effect of enthusiasm! The more I think about this idea, the more I like it.

The more I think about people burning their money so as to ultimately deprive me of my stipend - so they can make more money when they do cash out - the less I like it.

coco

I burn my stippend not because I have more money than I know what to do with, I do it in hopes that the large amount of money I have which is loosing value every day will stop loosing its value. Even if I were to burn $500L a week, that's still just a bit over $1.50US. I have lost about $20 to $30US on inflation alone each of the last two weeks.

And if I were to donate that money to someone else, to me that's eqiivalent of pretending to be generous to someone by donating Enron stock. I feel I am more deceptive if I give that money to someone, who thinks they are getting a lot, when in fact me not removing that money from circulation will just make the money I gave to someone loose more and more value. And not only will it deceive the people I have donated to, it will also continue to hurt the people who are relying on the value of $l to at the least cover the cost of their monthly tier.

That way I don't have to do without. As long as I get to keep my stipends, I can continue to pay my tier and subscription cost of $11 a month.

It would be nice if there were actually 3 crowds:

1. The poor, who continue to need and want their stipends.
2. The rich who want to end stipends so that we all have to buy L$ with US$ to buy any stuff in game.
3. The rich who are willing to refuse welfare in the form of stipends in order to make the economy better, while still allowing for the welfare payments to the have-nots.

If there were actually groups 2 and 3, I don't think it would bother me. I could hope and pray for the simple, silent death of group 2 (JUST KIDDING!) while applauding group 3

But seriously, the stipend is for spending and spreading your money around. I know that we want to preserve the value of that money...truly. But I hope that burning money doesn't become a replacement for actually spending money in game. If you want to burn money that you would have just exchanged for US$, I'm all for it...please, feel free. Here's a cigar. Light up

Because if enough people do it, it would make a difference in the currently 'supply-side' LindeX. But if instead what you're doing is burning money you would have spent in-game, think about what you'll do when those shops close because they can no longer afford tier or rent.

Just yesterday Sophia told me I should go and buy that T-shirt she was weaing TODAY because the shop is closing due to it not being able to afford tier anymore. It's already begun. People just aren't shopping. The gold rush is over, and we're stuck with what's left, I guess....namely a butt-load of land, a disiniterested crowd, and Confederate money.

If you want Second Life to continue to BE, the economy has to continue. This is why I want to see people shop, even if they don't need anything.

(ack, rambling AGAIN...)