The L$ is up!

Well, it seems on these threads you're saying that you ought to be able to make your money back, so that net, you are not paying.

Seems to me people need to be reintroduced to the concept of TANSTAAFL.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, and people are getting introduced to that concept. Me, well, I make a little from what I sell, but I have no problem dropping ten bucks here and there for some L$.

You've never had a free lunch from a company that was trying to persuade you to go into business with it?

The concurent userbase has more than doubled since I joined a little less than a year ago when just over 3000 was the norm. At that time there were around 50000 accounts however that was also before free basic accounts. Still, a doubling of the concurent users in less than a year is a very good sign indeed.

"Well, it seems on these threads you're saying that you ought to be able to make your money back, so that net, you are not paying"

Yes, I AM paying: in my time, my effort, and my skills.

When you work and get paid at, say, McDonalds, that's free money is it?

Musuko.

And they'd be happy to pay that way too, but you won't let them, you want US$.

"And they'd be happy to pay that way too, but you won't let them, you want US$."

You don't know how money works do you? Someone gives me money so I can then exchange it for someone else's time, effort and hard work; that way, a shoemaker can buy my bread when I don't particularly need any shoes.

How about this for you: I do some work for you, providing you with something you need, and in exchange you provide me with something I need. Fair? Okay. What I need is some money to cover the US$ expenses I incur providing you with what you need. Fair enough?

Musuko.

Absolutely fair. But being a starting character with 0 work done so far and hence no credentials, and with no way to tell you from someone else's anonymous alt made for sole purpose of scamming people... how are you going to convince me you won't just run away with the money you're trying to get to "cover expenses"? And since hiring you involves this extra risk vs hiring already established worker with actual credentials... guess who's significantly more likely to get that work in the end.

Then it's not a free lunch.

It's like the pretzels a bar might set out - they may not cost you anything, but you can bet they bring in money either by being so salty you drink more beer, or the bar raises the price of the beer to compensate.

The equivilent situation in SL is "let's give free money to people... but the additional money circulating makes ALL of it less valuable".

The scales always balance. Always..

Not free. I had to dedicate time listenning to their "spiel" about why I should go into business with them. It cost me time, that I could use for something else.

Now if you've got an over abundance of free time, then you might consider it free. But I don't.

"Absolutely fair. But being a starting character with 0 work done so far and hence no credentials, and with no way to tell you from someone else's anonymous alt made for sole purpose of scamming people... how are you going to convince me you won't just run away with the money you're trying to get to "cover expenses"?"

They can do what I did: invest $1 into sl, use the money for upload costs, and do the work for the customer with payment upon delivery.

If you can't spare $1, then dear GOD, what are you doing wasting your time on an online game whilst you're in such a poor financial position?

Musuko.

And we're back to "game that claims to not need details of your credit card in attempt to boost its player base... does want these details after all"

I didn't mean that people should work really hard, I meant that people who fail before getting something obviously didn't want to get what they wanted enough. Example, people say, "Man, I'd do ANYTHING to be as good of a golfer as Tiger Woods." Tiger Woods spends 3 to 5 hours a day practicing his swing. Oftentimes in shitty weather, or hot sunlight. He still does it, and that's why he's good. Those people who say they would do "anything" to be like him quickly change their minds when they are offered to do the same thing. They just mean that they would do anything and work really hard for it, IF it didn't require much work or working hard. Same thing here. People who bitch about not being able to make a $L in game obviously are not as concerned about making a $L in game, because if they were, they'd actually go out and interview people, search for ideas, and work on trying to figure out HOW to make $L, instead of bitching about it. So, essentially, group B is the group that just bitches about lacking $L, but doesn't bother learning how to make $L (and plenty of options are available) and doesn't bother spending $US to buy any. So essentially all they contribute is bitching.

"And we're back to "game that claims to not need details of your credit card in attempt to boost its player base... does want these details after all""

It only needs those details if you want to put money into the game to invest or purchase optional extras. You don't need to do this.

Musuko.

Wonder how hard it would be to play Monopoly without this...



I suppose it would be fun if you were a greedy land developer...

You can use Paypal as well, can't you?

You can use PayPal but LL limits your credit input to $100 and I'm not going pay $20 to move $2000 into SL when it costs me nothing to make 20 $100 CC deposits.

You're still missing the point: in order for the economy to work, it needs people who do not make L$ in world, because those are the people who will pay US$ for them instead.

If you believe that anyone who works hard enough can earn L$ in world, then the flow of US$ (and thus the health of the L$) will depend on the lazy people!
.

But if people were exchanging their money for the time, effort and hard work of someone else in SL then fine - but they also wouldn't care about the US$/L$ exchange rate. What they want to exchange them for is US$, which then gets exchanged outside the relatively free economy of SL.



If it was as simple as "you provide me with something I need" then yes. But in SL, nobody needs anything, so it can't be that. Now you might provide someone with something they want. Which is fine - but you might also take away something they want. Someone might want to use that thing, but some other people might rather create one themselves - and find they can't, especially if it's a social thing, because they'd have to compete for attention with the existing one and they can't. They can put the same time, and effort, and skill in that you did and still get nothing because you can't catch up by going the same speed. So, they're not going to be too happy about essentially being forced to pay for it!

Which is it easier for someone who's not on the development team to make a new map for? Tartarus, or Counter-Strike?

(Oops - sorry, I had you mixed up with the old Tartarus combat simulator!! Sorry. But the point stands if you insert the name of an SL combat sim in that one's place.)

This is one of the thing that bothered me about seeing several people from SL - content creators themselves, even - switching to A Tale In The Desert. Because in ATITD it is possible for everyone to make a contribution to the community. Unfortunately on order to ensure that, ATITD has to do social engineering on a scale that would be horrific to SL users. Hopefully SL will never have to do that, but might there be something it could do?

Based on the number of limit sell orders filled, there are PLENTY of people who are willing to put US$ into this game. And those who work hard enough to make $L in game no doubt will and do bring enough value to the game to make others put their $US into the game.

p.s. I'm probably still missing the point.

We think that cancelling stipends for paying customers will piss them off and make them leave SL. Also people who were thinking of signing up for a paid acct will not pay money to a company that is untrustworthy and they will leave SL.

What SL needs is more people to log on and spend time in the world. The more time people spend in SL, the more likely they are to buy L$ because they will want to buy stuff, upload, rent land et.

You will leave SL if they cut your stippends???

I can think of several people who would, and many who would cut their Premium memberships.

zOMG BUY BUY BUY!

So what.. There are 200,000+ people, the few who might leave
won't be missed, because they'll be replaced with n00bs joining.

So don't let the door hit you on the way out.