Money For Nothing ... Please explain why residents should get Stipends, etc.

I didn't bother to read most of this thread but I have some ideas....just curious.

First, yes I think the stipend is a great incentive to move from basic to premium. I think $500L is doing me just fine. Why is it necessary, it's hard to create anything good and competitively sellable without uploading textures or images for packaging so $L are needed for that. I don't think we should tell people that "you need to pay $9.95 for membership, and then buy more $L if you want to create anything worthwhile" I think once people decide that they can run a business, if they need to buy more $L to get that started then fine, but not to expirament and test the waters.

Second, I think there should be a cap on how much $L you can have to recieve the stipend. Not sure what it should be but I think that once someone has so much $L they should either stop recieving the stipend or sell some $L to continue getting it. This would encourage circulation of $L better and encourage the big money makers to spend their $L rather than horde them.

Third, in place of that maybe when you sign up you can check a box saying whether you'd rather buy your $L through trading, or recieve a stipend. Make it a choice for people.

Fourth, flamed as I may be for this opinion, I don't think people should HAVE to get a SL job to make $L. That just takes ALL the fun out of it for some people who work multiple jobs in RL and want to relax. The ability of one to enjoy SL with or without $L is a personal thing. Some are fine without buying a thing from others in game, others get their kicks buying the fashions they can't or wouldn't wear in RL, or buying the cars they can't afford in RL. Do the creators of this content deserve to get paid for their work...yes! definitley, but I think there should be a line of some type drawn between being compensated for their time and effort and expecting SL members to pay their RL bills by buying their content. I'm not sure I understand that kind of player. It's cool if you can do it, but if the game changes to where you can't don't get upset because it's a game. Either evolve with the game or work longer hours at your RL job to make up the difference.

Lastly, the whole source/sink, supply/demand issue in SL is a very delicate balance. Only so many people will spend their RL $$ on $L. If stipends were gone completely, a good number of members would leave, the ammount of competition for different businesses could increase hurting those currently leading their markets, or the demand to buy $L would increase faster than the supply. I don't think players should be so concerned about the value of the $L, and their take home bottom line, but rather the subtle buying behaviors of the consumers as SL changes are made.

Stipends are essential for many of us. We have jobs in RL. Second Life is probably best viewed as neither a game nor a platform, but a hobby. Some people turn their hobbies into money making enterprises, but most don't. Forcing people to work in SL would kill the project. It would be like a quilting club that forced its members to sell their quilts in order to stay in the club. How many members would stay? The people who advocate stipend reduction or elimination need to understand a few basics. The first is that it is a hobby for most of us and we're here for fun. The second is that a reduction or elimination of the stipend would mean less cash available for those who do create commercial content. If I'm broke in Second Life I'm not going to buy your stuff. And if I don't, you don't have any cash either. And if I cancel my subscription, because I'm tired of being broke all the time and I don't have the time/desire/skills to work in world, Linden loses money too. How many people do you think are going to stay in world if they have to spend more real money to buy their Lindens just to live at a basic level? I've bought Lindens for big purchases, such as land, but I'm out of here if I have to buy Lindens in order to survive.

Should people have to work in SL? No. But if they have tastes that are more expensive than what the stipend covers, they have a choice of working, or buying L$ with real money. The movie industry is full of high earners, many who do not work as hard as some content creators in SL I bet. The money you pay for a movie ticket goes towards much more than paying the bills, it pays for a very excessive lifestyle for some. Yet you rarely hear people getting upset about having to by a movie theater ticket. So why do you not like the idea that hard working content creators are being compensated to a level it pays for their bills?

Michael, entertainment costs money.
You pay for movies, newspapers and CDs. You pay for cable, and in some countries you have to pay a special tax for the privilege of owning a TV or a radio, since the state-owned networks make content available to you for free.
These things are only content, and no less real than the stuff you can buy here.
Real people spent their time making that stuff... equally real people make the stuff you see in SL.
Do you think content producers should go get a "real" job, and continue to produce the content that entertains you as an unpaid hobby, after a hard day of work?
Do you have any idea what that would do to content quality and innovation?

This is a really great idea IMO.
I actually thougth this already happened as it's the logical way to procede with any payments that are basically social assistance payments or "welfare like." That's the way most governments do it in RL.

To me the 500 bucks or whatever it is is invaluable money to live on. To a Chip Midnight or an Amiee, it's chump change on top of everythign else they earn. I would completely support the elimination of the stipend for those that make more than the stipend itself.

I think I just read Osprey's post to fast, and this thread is moving so fast.

We are already in the situation where Linden Labs is giving out coupons that turn into $L. The money they charge you for the stipend will never give someone that same money back when you spend it. Either you need this currency that is not in the cycle to be marked as something different then the $L, or you need the money paid for stipends to directly paid back to those who get those $L when it is spent.

The idea is good, but near impossible to implement. What if someone who doesn't earn money is given or loaned money by a friend? Do you go by net change in L$ over the week? You could earn 10k today and then pay another resident by the name of Zeppi Schlegal tomorrow. How would it work in practice?

I think I just read Osprey's post to fast, and this thread is moving so fast.

We are already in the situation where Linden Labs is giving out coupons that turn into $L. The money they charge you for the stipend will never give someone that same money back when you spend it. Either you need this currency that is not in the cycle to be marked as something different then the $L, or you need the money paid for stipends to directly paid back to those who get those $L when it is spent. The only other option is for Linden Labs to get better at balancing the economy with more sinks.

How many times do I have to tell you? It's Schwanson Schlegel....pay Scwhanson Schlegel not Zeppi.

What coupons?

No not currently, but that depends on the exchange rate at third party sites, and in the future it seems, via the client.

All you will do is create a second tradable currency. That will do nothing but complicate things.

You have to remember that with LL US$ is not equal to xL$. The rl money paid to LL for premium accounts is not part of the economy. Its also their income lol, so I doubt we will see it coming back to us

Ok, just because the coupons look the same as $L, does not mean that they aren't coupons. The money Linden Labs collects is most of the time not for something they are selling. Most of those $L are spent on something someone else made. They are printing these buy whatever you want coupons called stipends for a real life cost without ever letting the reciever of the coupon treat it any differently than money. I'm using the word coupon, because a stipend is a free pass to buy what you want without giving your real life money to the maker of the product.

Now, the only way it wouldn't work like a coupon is if $L is giving away free services in an equal amount to the value to the stipends they gave out.

But..but...they are L$ lol. In fact most of the L$ in the economy must have originally come from stipends! Which highlights the other use of stipends, they are an essential L$ supply into the economy.

The more I think about it, the more I think that Linden Labs should get into the buying of currency, since they already got into the selling of currency. I think this was mentioned by Gabrielle before, but when they get their currency exchange they can do this in a fair way.

The only way for stipends not to hurt the economy is if Linden Labs does not profit off of stipends. When they profit off of stipends, they are profiting at the expense of content creators. If they truly want to put money in the hands of content creators, then it is not the stipend that has to be ended, it is the profit that they have been making that has to end.

If when they make their own currency exchange they put a buy up for every $L they print for the price it was bought for, then they would not be hurting content creators. They would not be losing money, because they already got the same amount of money from the buyer of the stipend. If they want to have some $L fees charged for services, then they could remove a buy from the market for every $L1000 paid to them through $L fees.

The reason the stipend hurts, is because it doesn't give the creator of the product the money. The only way to completely balance things is to take away the profit of Linden Labs in the selling of the stipend. If Linden Labs wants to store the time delayed money they have not paid back to the recievers of the stipends to make a profit, then that would be fair as long as they are willing to cover the cost of the $L when it eventually is redeemed. Otherwise they are simply garnishing the top off of the profit of others.

Of course this would require the seperation of land ownership from stipend buying.

How much Ls should we get?

Linden Labs does not set the value of Ls. The values of the L is set by the market.
Whether we raise the stipends or lower them.
For example:
Assume LL gives you X Lindens per week.
Assume the value of X Lindens (set by the market) = $5.00USD.
If: LL gives you 2X Lindens per week.
Then: The value of 2X Lindens will = $5.00USD. (Or close.)

In other words:
LL gives you 500L per week.
Assume value of 500L (set by the market) = $5.00USD. (you wish).
If: LL gives you 2X Lindens per week.
Then: The value of 2X Lindens will = $5.00USD. (Or close.)


I personally think that they should replace the startup bonus with higher weekly pay, and free first land.
Give starting players 600L at startup instead of 1250L. Meanwhile, make First Land free, and give 600L per week in stipends instead of 500L.

If 600L is replaced by 500L, the market value of 600L will now be the same as what 500L was. Thereby, giving a better range of product pricing.


It would really make no difference what the weekly pay is, because the market would adjust itself accordingly. The reason 600L is good is because it allows for pricing in to be in smaller units.

Given the example above.
500L = $5.00USD. This means that 1L = $0.01USD. Therefore, I can price items to the nearest USD penny.

600L = $5.00 USD. This means that 1L = $0.0083USD. Therefore, I can price items to the nearest 0.83 USD pennies.


The latest GOM closing value of the L is:
$3.32 per 1000L.
This means 1L = $0.00332USD.

They have annouced that they are looking into providing the means for residents to sell L$ to each other, but they're not selling it themselves.


They are not profiting off of stipends. They offer 500L per week and the ability to hold 512m2 of land in return for your subscription. They have to make their money somehow, they need to inject L$ into the economy somehow, and you have 500L to spend each week.


Altho I believe in people being compensated for their hard work in providing content and services in SL, I think LL deserves some money, don't you?


OK you will need to explain this, am not quite sure what you are getting at here


I don't understand what you mean when you talk of the stipend hurting? They are not garnishing any profit. They provide a service for premium members that comes with a stipend of 500L. That 500L is spent in world and ends up in the hands of content and service providers. They then sell the L$ for rl money to provide compensation for their hard work.

Eggy, this is not an unpaid hobby. I pay for it every month in tier fees and premium subscription payments. Part of the money I pay goes into my stipend. And that gets transferred to content creators when I use that stipend to buy stuff inworld. So the cash flows from me to Linden Labs, then some back to me as a stipend, and then to others when I buy stuff. If you reduce or eliminate my stipend, then the money doesn't flow to the content creators. Just look at the numbers, there are now 50,000 Second Life residents. How many of them create commercial content? Ten percent? If that many. How many make enough to trade currency online? Less than 1 percent I'm willing to bet. Probably much less. So the residents who do create commercial content are dependent on the tens of thousands who don't.

If you reduce or eliminate the stipend than the people who do create content will HAVE to go get "real" jobs, because the consumers on whom they depend won't have the money to spend. If content creators really wanted to make real world cash they could easily do so. Sell your stuff outside Secondlife for real money.

But for most of us this is a hobby. My stipend makes up about half my weekly income, and that's without selling a thing. It gives me enough cash to have fun inworld and to support those people who are creating the amazing content that keeps me a resident.

Good point. Implementation is always the hard part I guess. We would have to basically track everyones financial transactions and either employ some pretty fancy coding or an army of auditors to make it work I suppose.

Dark,

The 500L and 512m2 land are an incentive for people to pay for SL. We are fortunate that you can go basic for no outlay at all. LL needs the income from premium accounts to run the show, so if you seperate the stipend from the premium account, LL would have to charge a fee to all accounts.

Sure, why not?

Now can I have a discount on my premium account payment of $9.95 for forfeiting my $500L stipend?

You pay $9.95 you get 500L stipend for doing nothing.

I pay $9.95 I get zip for working to make you content.

*cough cough* welfare * cough cough*

The creator of a currency is not supposed to sell you the currency they create.

$L buy products made by SL residents. When Linden Labs gives these 500L a week to SL residents, it is the same as giving them 500$L worth of products that week. If someone buys a premium account to get a stipend, then they are paying Linden Labs for the right to buy something Linden Labs did not make. The only way to rectify the situation is when Linden Labs does not collect US$ for their L$ fee services such as snapshots. This seems like overcomplicating the situation though.

If Linden Labs charged US$ for these services they would make less. The reason they would make less, is because we already know that the sinks don't equal the sources based on the falling economy. This means that Linden Labs is making a profit when you compare the amount they make for stipends verses the amount they loose for not selling services in US$. This profit is at the expense of the content creator, because that money would be his if Linden Labs balanced the services(sinks) with the money creation(sources).

Land and stipend together just confuse the matter. The thing I was getting at before is if Linden Labs made stipends a seperate product from the 512, they can balance things perfectly. When they have their own currency exchange they will have a place where they can make sure the US$ is going to the correct place. You don't want them to just buy every $L, you want them to offer to buy a $L for the same price that they sold the $L in the stipend fee. This means that the exact money that they got for someone having the ability to buy resident made products, goes back to residents on the currency exchange. If they offered a service that charged a $L fee, they can instantly recoup a US$ value for this fee, by not having to keep that amount of currency on the buy side of their market. They could remove the buy from the currency exchange, since someone spent their $L on a Linden Labs made product. The only way for the $L change naturally is if Linden Labs profits do not include profits from the sale of the currency.

It's an idea to try to balance the economy better. Right now the majoity of in-world $L is in relatively few hands. The people who want to profit RL$ from SL are complaining that there are too many $L being made and want to have stipends cut...the people who depend on the stipends are complaining that they have no $L and can't compete with the already established content makers. The content makers reply with "buy $L" of course they do...they want to make RL$ So the only people benefitting from stipend cuts are the relatively few who hold most of the $L. And I only suggested this as an idea because so many consider stipends welfare...well then make it work like welfare! And for the record I don't do nothing, I build what I need, I make things for my friends and vice versa, I just don't want the hassel of dealing with customers. I've worked in retail before and the finickyness and inability to make everyone happy drove me out of it...it just wasn't for me.



I do not believe you can compare a game to RL businesses like the movie industry. Plattform, game, same thing. Platform to you, game to me. Do either of us have the right to dictate how the other enjoys SL? Sticky subject because how you enjoy SL may affect my enjoyment and vice versa. How do you decide who is right? It's not that I don't believe that people shouldn't be able to make that kind of money off SL, it's that I don't believe that they should EXPECT to make that kind of money and definitely not at the expense of other's fun. I agree that if you don't get what you want for your stipend, then work or buy...but there are those calling for a cut to stipends or removal of them completely and that is where I have an issue.

You are slightly wrong. The stipend does not have to be decreased to make those wanting to profit happy. The stipend can even be increased and still make content makers happy. The problem content creators have is that some of their income is being given to Linden Labs when stipends are sold. If the money paid for stipends was redirected back to the residents, then there would be no negative effect to the stipend. Increased fees indirectly send money back toward residents by making their $L more valuable. I have suggested that with the new currency exchange coming, that a more direct pay back to residents can happen. As long as new members come to SL, new money will need to be inserted into Second Life. As long as people become inactive making $L disappear, new $L will need to be inserted into Second Life. If you want to insert money into the economy, then choose something like attendance at events, higher initial amounts of money for new players, the same amount of extra $L given to everyone. The stipend being sold should send money to the people it buys products from.

You are slightly wrong. The stipend does not have to be decreased to make those wanting to profit happy. The stipend can even be increased and still make content makers happy. The problem content creators have is that their income is constantly decreasing as people pay Linden Labs for the right to use the products that resident provides. If the money paid for stipends was redirected back to the residents, then there would be no negative effect to the stipend. Increased fees indirectly send money back toward residents by making their $L more valuable as the money supply shrinks. I have suggested that with the new currency exchange coming, that a more direct pay back to residents can happen. As long as new members come to SL, new money will need to be inserted into Second Life. As long as people become inactive making $L disappear, new $L will need to be inserted into Second Life. If you want to insert money into the economy, then choose something like attendance at events; higher initial amounts of money for new players; or the same amount of extra $L given to everyone. The stipend being sold should send money to the residents, not to Linden Labs.

The stipend does not have to be decreased to make those wanting to profit happy. The stipend can even be increased and still make content makers happy. The problem content creators have is that their income is constantly decreasing as people pay Linden Labs for the right to use the products that resident provides. If the money paid for stipends was redirected back to the residents, then there would be no negative effect to the stipend.

The current method to do this is fees paid in $L. This indirectly helps send money back toward residents by making their $L more valuable as the money supply shrinks. I have suggested that with the new currency exchange coming, that a more direct pay back to residents can happen.

Money being added into the SL economy is not the thing that is considered bad. As long as new members come to SL, new money will need to be inserted into Second Life. As long as people become inactive making $L disappear, new $L will need to be inserted into Second Life. If you want to insert money into the economy, then choose something like higher initial amounts of money for new players; developer incentives; or the same amount of extra $L given to everyone. The stipend being sold should send money to the residents, not to Linden Labs.

The stipend does not have to be decreased to make those wanting to profit happy. The stipend can even be increased and still make content makers happy. The problem content creators have is that their income is constantly decreasing as people pay Linden Labs for the right to use the products that resident provides. If the money paid for stipends was redirected back to the residents, then there would be no negative effect to the stipend.

The current method to do this is fees paid in $L. This indirectly helps send money back toward residents by making their $L more valuable as the money supply shrinks. I have suggested that with the new currency exchange coming, that a more direct pay back to residents can happen.

Money being added into the SL economy is not the thing that is considered bad. As long as new members come to SL, new money will need to be inserted into Second Life. As long as people become inactive making $L disappear, new $L will need to be inserted into Second Life. If you want to insert money into the economy, then choose something like higher initial amounts of money for new players; developer incentives; or the same amount of extra $L given to everyone. The stipend being sold should send money to the residents, not to Linden Labs.