USD only?

if the L$ economy were to completely collapse, how would content creators feel about using a SL-WWW store which gave preferred rates to USD purchases, thus cutting LL's income skimming L$ printing press completely out of the picture?

The chief argument always hurled at this idea is that people are willing to spend 40,000L for a virtual toy gun but would think twice before spending, what is it now, $120US.

Well yeah I guess so. It'll certainly make us price things more reasonably won't it. Land works that way too. What's a mere 150,000L for a nice 4096sm waterfront lot next to Purple Spinning Mall Tower Megazor compared to $450US OMG I DON'T THINK SO!

Doesn't really matter to me whether my trees sell for 200L or sixty cents US. Seems a fair price either way.

I bet we get posts about: "OMG the Dollar is falling!! SELL SELL SELL".

Sounds good, Mr Wu!!

It would be nice if Linden Lab could add the option for us to sell items for US$ directly.

I think the L$ was always intended to be just fun play money. I imagine that the amount of time and effort people are putting into their creations, and as a result, the prices they charge for those items, has far exceeded Linden Lab's expectations.

Micropayments could soon become quite rare.

Well as an economist, I'd prefer for them to keep an in game currency system, as if it was SL -> WWW USD then SL would be more of just an online sales catalog you could walk around in and buy virtual stuff in. Nothing wrong with that, but my interests are in monetary policy, and so I'd prob move to another game, as I usually do every few years anyways.

Cheers!

It wouldn't work as well. Would LL be willing to give out 2 dollars for a stipend every Tuesday?

Though it sure would be nice not to lose money daily if I hold on to $Ls too long.

The L$ and stipends would still continue to exist. A US$ 'Sell for' option would be great for those who don't want to have to deal with an unstable toy money.

Everybody would be happy!!..

Yeah, right.

As another user pointed out the pyscological change in spending $L vs $USD will prolly be a hard pill to swallow, but hey I could be wrong. (I cant belive some of the things people are willing to pay moeny for these days)

(/me is not an economist)

Hook the stipen system up to the market and rebalence dwell gains to be a % greater then Σ sinks in the economy inevidibly forceing the value of the $L to the vicinity of 50-100:1 while still maintinaing a growth.

Does this make sense at all / is it a realistic soloution?

My logic is that LL does not make its money from premium users base 10$ as much as they do from user who own land.

As long as I get 500 lindens a week, minimum.

A side system for buying in USD would be good. Then those who want to make USD can sell using that rather than deal with all this forum stress. 2 birds with one stone.

USD purchases would be great. And contrary to what some people have posted about residents being more willing to part with their Linden dollars, I think that if they saw the equivalent USD value, they'd be pleased to find out that lots of content costs less than 75 cents.

Wouldn't it be great if someone set up Pay Pal in SL? Right click on an item and the customer pays into your Pay Pal account.

Oh it would!...

I don't think USD transactions will ever be able to happen, though.

Not because of rising prices but because of the legal liabilities. Unless Linden Lab acted as an "escrow" for all transactions, anonymity would be gone, because the buyer and seller would see each other's real names on their transaction registers. If LL did act as a broker, they put themselves in a very precarious position ("well, LL took my money, they just didn't send it on".

Casinos would have to be somehow banned. People selling items that went wrong, or that were over-described, could get sued IRL. Every SL player would have to have their income taxed, even if they just wanted to spend it on in-world items.

Html on a prim can allow a viewing of a slexchange or slboutique page though.

Dont forget there are a lot of customers who "will only pay for fake pixels with fake play money," and never with "real" money.

I think that SLEx/SLB cover themselves be stating that if you buy an item for US$ in their stores, you're not really buying it for US$, they're just automating the process of buying enough L$ for the item and then buying the item with that L$.

Or is there a system on SLEx/SLB where if an item is bought for US$, the seller can recieve US$ (not equivalent L$) in their SLEx/SLB account?

If you look at the tax laws, this is already the case. The only thing preventing it from being relevant is the small values most people are dealing with. Bottom line, though, is that in most countries if you trade something of value (e.g. the time, effort and skill represented in a digital image, like a skin) for something else of value (e.g. the rental of server space in the form of land) -- whether directly or through an intermediate (e.g. L$) -- that's a taxable event for both parties at the market value of the transaction as it occured. That is *regardless* of whether you cash out the proceeds into your PayPal account or not.

Didn't know that. Its the closest thing we have right now though- and remains a viable alternative. Especially when some of us like to keep the linden dollar and USD seperate.

I think they just display the prices in US$, but you actually purchase the item with L$.

yet they still mooch off content creators skimming USD from the econmy with their L$ printing press

those people either recirculate their SL business earnings or live solely on stipend welfare. the latter are entirely irrelevant to content creators. the former could sell their L$ earnings on the lindex to purchase items. however i propose that such a vending system would still allow L$ transactions, just at a worse rate than the Lindex offers. (since the Lindex cuts 3.5% off of a creators income!).

Keep that debate as is if you would. I don't care if they buy the stipends off the lindex, as long as I get my 500 lindens a week I paid for, minimum. The problem most have with stipends could be easily rectified by buying them off the lindex.

Its also not welfare for premiums, since its paid for. Don't be an ass and group it in with that.

there was a fee related to GOM and there is with Pay Pal as well (isn't there?) Lindex is a service so I don't really see a problem with paying a fee.

I've suggested this several times. The chief hurdle I see is micropayments. No one wants to be charged a handling fee for every $0.35 sale. I think the answer is for the website to use a deposit account and then subtract your sales from your balance. Let's say that you have a minimum deposit of $10. You send that via PayPal, credit card, carrier pigeon, whatever. Then, you purchase against it until your balance is zero. One PayPal, etc. fee.

SLBoutique and SLExchange could likely make this conversion easily. With HTML on a prim supposedly in the near future, you could shop from inside SL.

One reason they may be reluctant to is that they then need to be concerned with sales taxes - which means paperwork, international paperwork. And they would likely need to keep the two-currency system for the convenience of both buyers and sellers.

My bet is taxes is the killer consideration.

first there is the Lindex fee, then the Paypal fee. that's a whole lof of fees on top of business taxes!

it's a fee to do business in L$. so why bother with L$? SL businesses already pay operating costs to LL in the form of tier payments. by operating in USD, the 3.5 % is completely avoided altogether and prices can go down for consumers!

the L$ has minimums too. ex:
26000 L$/annum for 72$
2000 L$/month for 10$
Lindex has a 20 USD purchase minimum.

the L$ is convenient for LL to
a> avoid responsibility for the SL economy
b> entice players with freshly minted currency to buy other peoples work