This linden sillyness is misguided

Welcome to SL Kitty and welcome to the forums. Your experience pretty much mirrors mine. The next bit of information is for the general forum and not directed at you or your comments.

I don't know if what LL did with the new registration is good or bad but the first day's results are rather dramatic. The increase in new members since I joined SL has been going up at a rate of almost 1000 residents per day, the increase yesterday was 2,199 which is over twice the rate previously seen. Whether this leads a dramatic increase in active players remains to be seen, the 50,000 new accounts added since I joined doesn't seem to have made much on an impact on the number of active players.

What you dont realize Musuko is it is a discouragment. These people that could of joined SL and had some help to get into development without buying L can no longer do so. This discourages people in general that would of otherwise mabye become productive or actually tried to enjoy being in SL. Force People To Buy L to do anything wow How Kind. Its a counter productive move that really doesnt benefit anyone at all.

What I stated right above can actually be proved to be kind of a dull witted move. Look at the L value since they have made this action. Has it gone up in value or has it gone down? As I have stated time and time again to people Economics is flawed. It does not take into account human nature. People claiming this as a good thing are sadly mistaken and cant see past making a profit to see that it wont help as long as they continue their actions.

The people in SL control the value of the L not the supply. Sure we can go on the supply/demand end of things but that pertains to product value. I've been in SL close to a year and its been a kind of trend going down slowly. Its these people causing it not the supply. People forget to factor in Other people and dont think about the consequences of their actions on Lindex much. They want to cover their tier/make a profit and wanna sell the L fast b4 they have to pay any actual real life cash to do so.

I think the stipends are needed for basic accounts and i think the signup bonus is as well. Thye are important to a growing infastructure wether you want to believe it or not!!!

Perhaps its worth pointing out that some of the most popular vendor systems cannot handle L$0 sales. If you include freebies in your vendor product set, e.g. as samples, you cannot lower the price from $1 to $0 even if you want to.

Presumably LL saw the *cough* success of "There" in giving nothing to new players and making them pay to do pretty much everything.

Did them a lot of good, didn't it?

I totally agree with the similar observations that although residents are rocketing, in-world figures are hardly moving. It is the latter figure, not the former, that is indicative of successful recruitment and retention.

Lewis

Because selling a box with 20+ items for 1L is not the same as selling a box with one freebie item for 20L.

While you're technically correct that the two are not equal, I fail to see the moral distinction. You seem to be saying that it's okay to resell freebies as long as the price charged is within some limit you've arbitrarily set.

So, what is the price limit then? Under what circumstances is it okay to resell freebies?

Think the L$1 price on the free stuff in newbie shops is mostly there to allow person running store track easier what things people are actually interested in. At least that's what i usually see the L$1 payment on 'demo' items used for...

Then why not refund the L$1 immediately? Or send an email or instant message when a freebie is taken?

Anyway, somebody else had made the claim in this thread that the freebie stores couldn't lower their L$1 prices to L$0 because they had build a business model on the L$1 pricetag. That led to the question of why it's apparently okay for some people to resell freebies while other people have scorn heaped upon them for doing so.

Bingo. The forums are filled with moral hypocrites.

The only reason I stay around is to grab nOOb souls and convert them to Capitalism before the old Crusty Krew grabs 'em.

Because they are simple "buy" type boxes with content for sale, instead of scripted "pay" type vendors. Which has benefit of allowing the buyer to see in advance content of the box, but makes what you describe problematic.


Yeah, saw it. I don't think that's actually correct, but it's only for owner of such store to say.

In any case, would say a difference between selling single item for L$20 and 20 items for L$1 total means a new person is getting 400x as much for their starting money. Is it still "hypocrisy and reselling freebies"? Only as long as the original creator of item in question is unaware of this practice and does not approve. Which afaik is not a case with GNUbie store and such.

Hi there,

Actually Economics is by definition, the study of people and how people respond to the scarce resources around us. Many people associate Economics with the stock market or business or systems of commerce. In actuality, Economics is a Social Science and the one thing we are interested in, is human nature.

The fact that humans always want to "get the best deal" or "maximize their own self interests" is what gives us supply and demand dynamics which is why the L$ loses value. Some people feel that players cashing out money on the LindenX are "impatient" and thus they put money on the market for less than what it is worth. In actuality, the sellers and buyers are trying to maximize their returns and with more and more L$ being added to the money supply, with about the same demand or at least demand not equal to or greater than supply, the L$ loses value. Now, in a statistics class, one of the first things you learn is to consider 3% top 3% bottom as % margin of error, so 6% approx. That accounts for the crazy people whom sometimes put up 50kl for sale at some mega low rate (500L/1USD). This, in economic terms has to do with "rationality." Plato observed that humans do not always act rational.

Now, although I am an economist, I did not come up with the above myself. In fact the above conclusion of why something loses or gains value is derived from observations of Plato, Socrates, Adam Smith, Keynes, Nash (The guy which the movie A Beautiful Mind was based on), and other VERY smart people who figured economic theories out over thousands of years.

Now, I was only replying to the one section of your post quoted above, so sorry if my post doesn't respond to anything else in your post.

Cheers!

They're not as smart as you think since they already removed the income of 80% of the buying populace in SL and effectively killed in world busineses.

Uh..that's not capiltolism. Perhaps you mean converting them to freebie reselling leeches.

"Buy" type boxes do allow you to set a price of L$0, I'm fairly sure.

This is not true. I have been a content creator in SL for over 3 years now, and have been selling boats and yachts (medium to expensive items that SL folks want but don't 'need' in SL) for over 2.5 years now. While I am not anywhere near the level of income that virtual real estate folks make, I enjoy a good income that has paid for many nice RL things.

My business in SL has continued to prosper throught the good times and bad (both being sujective depending on where you stand in all this), and my business (and income) has grown even with the adjusting value of the L$ in the past 6 months.

My point is... Quality content is still valued in SL, and business and creative people who provide goods and services that customers want and appreciate will thrive through most any economic fluxuation (speaking specifically to VR world economies). Business is not dead. Smart business folks move with the times and change their products/services/prices etc. to work within the economy of the time.

So, if any SL business has been 'killed' then maybe the business was not providing what the customers want or need at a price they are willing to pay. Given that the cost to buy L$ has never been lower that over the past month, you would think that people might be more willing to spend it on things. If a business was making its money from just those who got 'free' L$ thru a stypend then they picked a bad business model. If you have no out of pocket costs (get free Lindens) then you may probably care 'less' what you spend it on (candy, freebies for $1L or $20L, etc.)

If you have to buy your L$ then your going to be more cautious on where you spend it, and want to get value from your hard earned bucks. I see no problem with this. Quality vendors will survive. 'Street vendors' will vanish. AND there will still be plenty folks out there to give away freebies, share their knowledge, and othewise provide solace for those who want a 'utopian' like experience in SL (which I also have no problem with).

Mickey

So if this was the case, and your business was growing because of its quality and others were too, then why kill the stipends and the primer?

Yes, but then i think it doesn't record these sales as transactions (which is why people set the price to L$1 to be able to track sales to begin with) ... not 100% sure though, didn't actually try it with price set to 0.

In other words less selection to spend your "hard earned bucks" on, the money spent gets funneled into pockets of fewer people, making them more rich while the rest spends either RL money or does without.

We already have plenty of this type of poverty in RL. Why is this desirable effect to have SL follow these same steps, exactly..?

yes and if this happens there are hundreds more who have been struggling to make a living in SL will be right there to take their place!!

Here's how I see it...yes the overall $L amount in SL has gone up, but so has the membership and the individual $L amount has stayed the same. There may be too much $$L floating around but I certainly don't have any of it. I need my stipend now just as much as I did 2 years ago when I joined because I do not want to work a 2nd Job.

If there are too many $L's for sale it is because a relatively small amount of the population has the majority of the $L's due to their sales. Is the answer really to make the majority pay the minority for them? I can't even begin to express how much I wish SL was the way it was when I joined and the value of the $L did not seem as important as it is now to so many people. I'm so tired of hearing "end stipends save the economy" PLEASE STOP TRYING TO TAKE AWAY THE FUN OF THE MAJORITY TO PAY THE MINORITY! Why can't people just create things for the fun of being able to the way they used to? I really resent people joining SL for the sole purpose of trying to make RL $$. I'm sure they resent people joining SL for the sole purpose of fun. SL is a game to me...and while I'm sure all the capitalists won't miss my meager purchases, when SL becomes a world of creators and all the "purchasers" have gone because they don't want to spend $US on virtual content that could be wiped out by a server crash...bye bye SL!

My problem with no stipends is that now that dwell is going away many club owners and event planners will be charging admission to events forcing people to pay $US to get $L's to go to events.

I think if the "economy" of SL keeps going in this money hungry direction where the minority screaming about the falling value of the $L rules LL's decisions concerning incentives SL will become a very boring place and irritating place for the common player who is just here to have fun.

If the content creators have to leave because they aren't making enough $$ off SL, then Maybe a few will start making things for fun again.

Ok....my sleep deprived, slightly disorganized and random rant is over.

Selling 20+ items of freebie items in a box for 1L and selling one item for 20L are the exact same thing morally?

Do I have you right?

lol

Let me introduce you to a new word, profiteering.


Free and .05L$ is just about the same thing and nothing to get morally outraged about. But if something is worth .05L$ at most and someone sells it for 50L (1000x market worth) to somebody who doesn't know any better, that's profiteering.

Just wanted to update this, the new additions on 6/8/06 were 2,994; that is about 3 times the rate just the week before. Sombody keep track of the growth for the next two days I'm going to my mothers 90th birthday party and will be out of touch.

I have been keeping a spreadsheet of total users and acive users since November 2005 so I can answer questions over that period.

I did want to make some observations on the comments to the original subject of this post. I think the simplified registration will increase the number of new users however the percentage that stick with it may be a lot lower because of the zero linden issue.

I'm gonna make an effort in the next couple days to talk to new users and try to decern their impressions of the game and the economy. Try to see if they consider the "free account" bait and switch because of the inability to participate in a major part of the game for free.

I'd love to grind through that data. Would you mind posting it?

Thanks!

<Applause> Thank you, Sir.

Economics is not "flawed". Economics simply IS. People will trade and exchange things whether or not there is an official "Exchange" for them or not. Even if there is no "currency" supported by gold, or a government. What gives GOLD its value, by the way?

People have established the worth of Gold. Without man to give it value, it would have none. The value of any kind of "currency" is based on one thing. The agreed upon value at the moment of trade.

That value will change, depending on many factors. Nearly all of which involve the "human element". If there are two shops offering the same product at the same price...SOME people might suggest that economics would say there is no difference between the two, and that both have an equal chance of completing the trade of currency for product, and closing a sale. As consumers, we all know this is NOT true. Maybe we do not like the workers at one shop. Maybe we do not like the traffic on the way. Maybe we do not like the music that is played in the store, or how dirty the store is. No. The chances are not guaranteed to be equal. Other factors of "value" go along with it. Things that are "human" and very hard to measure. Does the seller support YOUR moral values? Maybe they even offer their product at a LOWER price....but you choose to purchase from the more expensive provider....because you "like" them more. That is not "flawed Economics". It is simply a fact of human nature and trading. Trades...are quite often based entirely on the human element, with MANY factors contributing to it.


Teufel is absoultely correct. Although economics uses mathmatics, it is really the study of people, and human interactions. A social science 100%.

Nice to have a breath of fresh air.

Exactly - and assuming that people will act in a virtual world in exactly the same, or even a similar, way to that in which they act in the real world is a mistake to start with.