What about the poor people with no talent?

Let me first say Im reading this while half asleep; so if this was sarcastic comment, then disregard following.

If not then where did you get this info? I just looked at the SL home/advertisement page.

I looked at one tab of things you do in SL and see I can create things and mess with the program that runs them.

Under another tab I see personalize any idenity I want (or create it if ya will.)

Ohh this tab says I can go bungie jumping and other cool this.. wait also says I can create that stuff too.

Welp this one says I can buy and own land and whats this.. once again create a home.


I must be blind cause I dont see the tab or place in thier user "contract" that says I can stand in line once week for free money or linden sponsored governmet cheese, or see mention of handouts (though I find lot freebies in SL,) nor see anything saying I just need stand around in some laggy club being bombarded with some lame sexual advancements everynight for a support check.

Im not one these talented content makers by any means. Took me week till someone taught me to even make a box and color it green. Nor do I yet have the skills to make stuff people pay much for (though Im proud of my surfing waves and sharks.)

Even without any skills I didnt run around in my default avie or clothes for more then a hour. Granted I had one ugliest avies ya ever seen but it was something I made myself (hmm wonder if thats what they ment when promised a world with player created content.) To this day I live just fine off stipends from my monthly membership. If want something I cant afford I just save up for few weeks. Dont really need spend much unless you want to.

I just dont see where you get the assertion that you was guranteed a existence of everything handed to you with no work or effort required.


Ok enuff rambling.. gonna crawl off to bed and pray my post makes atleast lil sense when I wake up.

Persephone, I read you posts with great interest, since I think you have touched upon a very important point - finantial support of arts & culture.

Strangely enough, the Lindens started SL with an almost "European" approach: arts & culture (in our case, beautiful content, and socializing in entertaining ways) are expensive, nobody wants to pay for them, so the "government" needs to subsidize them, because they "feel" it's important for the society. Thus, besides financing contests, LL financed/subsidized all sorts of projects and ideas, the latest having been Neverland, and the last mega-project for subsidizing content being the Incubator Program (abandoned due to pressures from the residents posting on the forums).

Nowadays, LL tries a more "American" approach: let the residents become patrons of the arts & culture, not the "Linden government". Let them get rich enough to be able to afford paying to others for creative content and entertainment.

This is the idea behind a TV network setting up a reality show for the masses to earn enough money to be able to have some hours for showing opera (since they would't be able to sell commercials during opera due to too low market share).

As an European I certainly favour a model where the "government" subsidizes art & culture, as well as encouraging people to get rich enough to be able to become art patrons. However, I understand very well the problem behind that model. Who is to be the judge for "quality art & entertainment"? The Lindens are too overburdened to be able to review all events (by attending them) and rate them accordingly to the quality of entertainment they provide. And nobody trusts a "board of residents" to do that job, and thus influence the amount of money artists should get. Thus, the Lindens had a dilemma - and the "easy way out" was simply to let the community regulate themselves on this issues.

What followed was, of course, all event hosters concentrating on events that actually provide a return in L$. Only a very few are able to do "something else" to earn L$ which will allow them to host entertainment for free (I'd be one of those ). And also only a very few subsidize events to be able to announce their products/services. So my estimate is that the community has no real incentive for "arts & culture" in SL, and that the Lindens should think about what they could do to deal with that.

Perhaps a thought comes to my mind. One way to get the rich residents to subsidize more events (instead of the Lindens doing it) is to lower their taxes (ie. the land usage fees). I'd say that many of the big land owners would certainly love to pay less US$ per month if they were willing to spend much more in subsidizing events.

While this makes sense from a society's point of view, I also fear the following possible outcomes:

1) LL would get less US$ per month, which finantially, from the point of view of a profitable company, wouldn't be a smart move.
2) Nothing would prevent so-called "art patrons" to only subsidize low-quality "events for the masses" instead of high-quality content & entertainment. "Events for the masses" make much more sense for a big enterprise (either in SL or in RL...) since they would be able to target their advertising (through the event subsidies) to a larger audience.
3) There would be some extra injustice between small landowners (or people who don't own land) who wouldn't be able to subsidize events and thus pay more for the land usage fees than the big landowners. The big landowners already benefit so much more from their "huge discounts" on the land usage fees, and this would be a new source of discontent.

The truth is, I think there should be some sort of mechanism that encourages good, quality content & entertainment, while at the same time preventing abuse. This is a hard challenge to meet!

But again - Persephone, I liked your ideas so much, that I guess I'll be hosting a Thinkers' event on that topic, it you don't mind...

Hahah. If what you created truly fell under the quality Arts & Culture catagory I think people would have no problem paying you a small fee to participate. The problem is most people open up a club and call it art. Its not. If you have a real viable plan beyond that, there are more than enough private SL citizens out there with the capital, will, and land to finance any such venture; all it would take is a few well placed PMs and you'd be up and running. There is so much empty land out there at the moment waiting to be used. Can you point out something in SL that was extremely valuable to the community but destroyed by the quasi-free market system or is this all hypothetical because the welfare your used to is gone?

Tere, you made some very valid points. You said a lot of things I wanted to say. The game was designed for creating.

The thing for me is I love to create and I want to create. I also love to see what other people create. I'm not rich and the $20 I spend on $L5k a week or so, doesn't take away from any of my bills or keep me from eating. I have friends who make due in SL on much less. With my $L5k or so a week, I buy things from other creative people and like to think I help the economy and I hire people who can't buy $L. I think it's a win win situation. To stop me and others like me from buying $L will only only hurt this game. There are games where you can just click and hang out and money is handed to you. I am glad we have something more interactive.

I'm excited to see what new and complex things people will build. People are motivated by profit more than just about anything. I feel protective of the neat things I've bought and created in this world, more so than any game I've ever been a part of.

I don't know if i'm just saying the same thing over and over, but this is how I feel.

Everybody with an opinion on this can dress in formal or edgy-artsy stuff to make that Thinkers meeting a *cultural event*. The contrarians among us could accessorize with a Saedaku Flamebringer. : D

Personally I agree with April. SL sparkles because of the opportunities here for content creation. The exchange of ideas between creators is WAY more interesting than routine chat room stuff like 90% of the activity in TSO. SL does way better than TSO at delivering on the slogan: be somebody else. SL gives us the tools to accomplish that, and the tools attract creative types. I particularly like furries and aliens and the free entertainment provided by our fan club with the long range artillery (I assume they were on ban last meeting!)

Here's my obligatory controversial statement: SL doesn't need to mimic the tiresome RL 'arts/cultural' institutions run by connected elites who know how to wangle funding from a paternalistic authority which siphons those funds from the pockets of taxpayers who might prefer to spend their own money the way they choose, not the way the government chooses. There -- that'll go over well in Neualtenberg. See you at the meeting!

Real Life - your broke = you starve your homeless

Second Life - your broke = you go to GOM and buy more money.

End Result - People who have money in Real Life will always be okay in Second Life.

You can write as many essays as you like about your pretend economy but for as long as you have GOM etc your really just talking complete and utter drivel.Its NOT really a Second Life anymore is it, where-as before, Mrs Average with 4 kids and a mortgage could play this game with a glimmer of living her fantasies, now she's Mrs Average in her Second Life too and the ONLY thing Linden Labs has just acheived is missing the whole point of why hundreds of people actually played this game.

You know what the single most scary thing about some of you is? You put PRETEND money before REAL people.

Ummm right... because a one time fee of $9.95 and $4 per $1000L is such a hardship

mrs average with 4 kids can still live out her fantasy just as before. but just not with a lot of the high end content created by users who are motivated by earning USD. there is a huge difference between the quality of content before the USD conversion and afterwards.

in other games, you MUST pay a monthly fee and in return the company creates the content. in SL, you paya fee according to your choice of land use. and you only need RL$ for land usage and to purchase the products of other peoples labour. many other players are motivated to make amzing crap by USD. why are you trying to impose your value for free stuff on these players? tell mrs average to stick to buying lower quality stuff.

why is it difficult to understand that time=money to many content creators and if you want their stuff then you must pay them money?

i put real people first. it's those who want others to toil for free who are not putting real people first. think about that!

What really irritates most of us "unskilled ones" is the arrogance of the creator class. Yes thats right arrogance. I dare say that all those Lindens accumulated didnt come from GOM as i know most arent independently wealthy. You gladly took our money for your products and hoarded it away but now We are the problem. I really find humor in that. We the ones who buy the things you create. I am not a basic user I own land and to be frank no I havent developed scripting or building skills it would be a pretty boring and dead place if everyone did the same things and were completely alike. Chip love ya sweety but the welfare comment really stuck in my craw. Yes I dance or Model and yes I have one of your wonderful skins to thank for that. I bought that skin after spending many hours in a club doing my thing you might not call it work but it was meaningful to those that rated me and those I rated back and also to the owner of the land. I see this as nothing more than some veiled morality attack dressed in economic sheepskin. You can think me a mindless simpleton sure but when you take away our means of earning soon yours will be gone too . I mean hell lets just decay everything thats fair if I have to start all over then shouldnt everyone? I know I know I was being faciteous but maybe just maybe you get my point. Then again probrably not but you will and it will hit you in your pocketbook eventually. I can live on alot less can you charge alot less? Thats part and parcel with income redistrubution . Have fun all

By the way if you didnt get the gist of my post here it is in a nutshell. Less currency in the hands of the real consumers = less taffic as you have less shoppers = less demand for product= lower realestate prices= lower prices for consumer goods. But what do i know im just a former consumer .

tara,
the real outcome is that premium account holders like yourself are getting a larger share of the total stipend paid out than before. you now have more buying power than basic account holders based on stipend alone.

slowly, as the L$ rises vs USD, people will start lowering prices of their items to compete with each other for your business.

the basic accounts with 1000/1000/600 ratings were deflating the L$. if the basic account holders get a free ride, what will motivate chip to make his skins? basic account holders must either be content with less, or buy L$ on GOM.

i have been shopping at neph's regularly and noticed that in the winter her prices were higher than in the fall for seburo outfits. what was the reason? i haven't asked her, but i'm confident it's that the L$ went from 5 USD a block to 4 USD a block. it is safe to assume when the L$ goes up, peoples prices will come down.

This really disappoints me, the negativity... we need each other. Without that diversity in our techecosystem, we deteriorate.

Why should anyone be so polar as to limit themself or another to some "class" artifice? Not only does it box people in, it set them against each other. Human conflict is inevitable but dealing with it is another thing, and heck, it doesn't make sense to me: all of the "content creators" who are my good friends are ALSO consumers in their own unique ways. They receive, they give back. Some of them play Tringo, some of them go to clubs, and some of them dabble in other fields of creation they haven't ventured into before. It's fun, it's progressive, and it keeps one openminded and hungry. And ya gotta eat to keep fueled.

Well, I guess it comes down to the individual, doesn't it?

STOP TO PUT AVATARS IN BOXES

Why not ask more questions to learn more from someone else what's on their mind and in their heart, as opposed to slamming down their perspective? You may both be better off learning from each other than continuing this blathering cesspool of shameful curses.

RRL = Really Redundant Loop

Tara, first of all, you are right here. Less currency in the hands of customers will decrease demand for some products at their current prices and those creators may need to lower prices among other techniques for boosting demand.

But I also sensed an anger in your previous post. Just wanted to say that I (and I think many here) am not denigrating how you choose to spend your time in SL. Not only that, I agree that your dancing and modeling is a service and delivers value. Instead, many are just saying that Linden Lab shouldn't be the one who pays you. Your club patrons should pay you. And if they are not earning L$ in world, they can easily get some through the online markets. For the cost of a couple candy bars, you can get a lot of Lindens.

This will continue to be a problem until LL makes it MUCH easier for people to do this. I did not use GOM because I tend to be suspicious on the Net... until I wanted to buy a piece of land and didn't have the money... tried GOM out and it was easy. My biggest criticism of LL is that they took away a form of income for many people but did not make it easier for the non-commerce-oriented members to fill that gap.

Not only that, but there is a huge psychological leap many people need to make that the stuff they were getting for free is no longer free. It doesn't matter what world, what thing, what topic, what country, what universe... that is something that always causes conflict.

this may be the most salient point from ll's point of view.

ll doesn't care if people spend l$... ll doesn't get anything from it.

but if sl stops being fun for people, the people will leave.

this "not fun" factor might affect people who pay land tier, but might not consider l$2000 a month enough to do anything.

I believe this will be a short lived phenomenon, limited to only people who were relatively new at the time the changes were made. To anyone starting today the way of things right now is what will be normal to them.

I'm not passing judegments Tara. I just find it a bit counterproductive for people to complain about something that's already come to pass instead of investing that energy into changing their attitude or finding new ways to do things. For the record (though I'm too lazy to go back and look) I don't believe I made any comments about welfare. If I did, forgive me. I don't judge how others choose to spend their time in SL, but I will take issue with points of view that I disagree with or that I think are misplaced. That said, there's a whole lot of people judging me going on lately, and making assumptions that I'm greedy or arrogant just by virtue of my having been successful and because I don't personally see the recent changes as that big of a deal. I still see SL as a very good deal in terms of entertainment value for the money it costs. My sales have not decreased since the changes were made. Skins are about the same as they've been for months, and my clothing sales are up. I don't know how you can call it "income redistribution." We all lost half of our bonus. Everyone who buys something from me does so of their own free will. Those who feel the products I offer aren't worth making a rich person richer are just as free not to spend their money in my stores. You are correct that there are veiled morality attacks going on here. You're just ignoring the fact that it cuts both ways. But what do I know? I'm just a greedy arrogant money changer

AND has anyone quit ? no so why should LL care unless like 300 people stop playing, they wont

I wonder if anyone realizes that GOM and IGE (now also ANSHECHUNG.COM) do not "make" lindens. They "trade" lindens. Just as banks don't make the money. They just move them around. So, in essence, L's aren't infinite - not even at GOM. Which means there will never be more L's inworld than what ll allows. That also means you can't sit down and start buying L's off the web like if they'd be worthless

And people who are dirt-ass poor in Real Life will also be just fine in Second Life, because there are no mandatory fees: No rent, no medical bills, no grocery bills, no utility bills, no insurance rates... Not one thing that is required or mandatory to play.

what ive done is use my pay pal ... account and put money in their then use Gamingopenmaket (gom) or there is ige ... which sells lindens ...at resonable prices ... should check this out to see if this is for you or not ... this is a opiotion also ...

ll is a business. that kind of situation has trade-offs.

i know of a few people who quit because sl was too expensive. and this was before the current brouhaha.

ll doesn't care about any given individual quitting (in most cases). but it does care if part of its targeted market disappears. of course knowing who their targetted market is conjecture w/o direct ll input.

but minimally, they want tier paying residents. this they have stated more than once.

and even though any one given thing may not cause a person to leave, enough small things may. and that, i would dare to say, does concern ll.

ll does listen to the sl residents.

torley, what the are you talking about?

all of the following distinctions exist -
L$ sellers - L$ buyers.
Basic accounts - Premium accounts
large ratings with stipend bonuses - low with minimal bonuses

these polarities exist. and this discussion is necessary and inevitable. hopefully not to reverse the new system, but to illustrate to that these changes are essential for the game to grow.



some perspectives are illegitimate and plain wrong! they must be slammed. hard! also ignoring differences is unproductive. differences must be understood or resolved. i think you are misreading the tone of this thread. the tone is frustration. i don't see where you got "blathering cesspool of shameful curses, at least not int he last few pages."

if you want to end this discussion, the safest bet is to constantly repost aimee's post from the other forum which describes SL economy for dummies. it's the best!

^ LOL thanks for the joke post, Jau. That made my day, and it's only 12:12 AM.

it's not a joke. i guess your post was a joke? i'm confused. but i'm also half way through a bottle of wine.