I wonder if...

...one stipend per person, rather than account, would be something LL could do. That might be useful. If not, perhaps one stipend could be given to each paid account.

They could definitely get away with cutting stipends to alts.

No they couldn't - three of mine are on full accounts + extra tier! If I pay for L$500 a week I expect to get it thank you!

Would it really make a difference?

I think when it comes to alts, all bets are off... it's hard to argue for their 'rights' in the same way as your main account. I'm not saying they should, but from the Linden point of view, it's probably a path of least resistance. It only affects people with alts, rather than all residents. A lot of residents without alts simply won't care if an alt loses a stipend, so you won't enjoy the same level of support.

My alt has full rights.

My alt has paid for her account.

If the alt isn't a full person as far as what she has coming to her is concerned, then don't charge her fully for her premium account.

coco

How about this idea. No Stipends Period. Anybody who want's
L$ can either buy it off the LindenX from whomever is selling it
and at whatever price its offered, or find a SL job and earn it.

Better run dump anotehr large chnk and drive the market down again so yuo can back your false fear mongerring RBD. you want to remove stipends then LL NEEDS to insist on and enforce a wage in SL for all employees, be it commision or toherwise and enforce same with stiff penalties to the greedy ones like you who would indulge in slave labor

You are not paying for a $500L/week stipend. LL has decided to give a $500L/week stipend and can change it anytime they want. It is a "gift" to you, you are not paying for it.

However instead of cutting stipends to alts I would rather see a limited amount of alts being in world at the same time. I get rather tired of going to a club with 10 alts of the same person making up the staff and customers...... Kinda defeats the purpose of SL other than making as much money as possible. So much for the 3D chat concept...

Only for Basic accounts, thanks

Along the same pattern of thought, I have "decided" to pay $10 a month for a premium account; I can change that any time I want, and deprive LL of income, which I suspect thousands of premium account holders would do, were LL to do away with premium account stipends.

P2

Yeah, however LL can change those rules to. They can quickly and easily change the premium plan to $9.95 per month only and do away with the other options and stop Basic/Free accounts. I think LL right now is trying to gain a large user base, get them hooked and then start feeling out what we are whiling to pay them to play. The more people you have already the less damage any bad choice they make will cause.

I'm not talking about 'ghost' alts - I'm talking about fully paid up premium accounts with additional tier!

I'm not saying they should, only that they could pobably get away with it. Also note, I've argued against stipends being removed.

Yes I am. I'm paying US$10/month for L$2000 - L$2500 (depending on the month) plus rent on 1/128th of a colo server in California. If what I get for that US$10/month changes, then what I'm paying for changes, and whether I continue to pay it depends on what part of it is valuable to me. Whether you or anyone else think the stipend part is the important part or not is utterly irrelevant.
This has nothing to do with "rights".

It's simply a matter of money. Real money, not monopoly money.

If LL cuts the stipend for alts, a lot of people will recalculate what "premium alts" are worth and drop them back to basic.

Which will produce a drop in Linden Labs' income. Which will show up on their bottom line.

And their bottom line, after all, is the bottom line.

Define 'alt'

My wife and I have seperate accounts on my CC. We are both seperate people in first and second life.

On the other hand... I could be bullshitting.

How could you tell?

You can't be paying for a stipend. Defies the definition of a stipend. However it isn't worth arguing about.

To use your own logic, if you think the stipend is important or not is also utterly irrelevant. I think everyone's point of view is relevant even if I disagree with it.

Anyway IMO if the premium stipends are reduced significantly or removed I will go back to basic myself. They do however have a issue with giving more back in $L then they are getting for the yearly paid accounts. I can see them taking the loss as long as they are paying tier but otherwise it makes no business sense. However I can not get myself to pay a yearly account on a game that may not be around for a year or I loose interest in less than a year.

But whatever. Sounds like we want to keep the stipend even if we disagree on the technicalities of it so no point in arguing it.

Which would be your problem not theirs if they decided to crack down on it. (isn't likely however)

Don't be silly. The stipend is the money my avatar makes working in the prim mines deep beneath the Atoll Continent. The ten bucks is the bribe I pay to the Prim Mine Foreman to get my avatar a good job.

I thought EVERYONE knew that!
It's completely relevant in the only way that matters... whether I pay Linden Labs my ten bucks a month. That's the bottom line, after all.
Then I guess you're paying for the stipend too!

Once again, I'm not for anyone's stipend being taken away, alt or not. I just can see it being any easier option for them... you could piss off everyone or just some.. which would you choose? People with alts would be (justifiably) indignant, people without them would say, "oh well, doesn't affect me". LL has shown in the past they don't mind upsetting large sections of the community, so nothing would really surprise me. It's not a suggestion, just something I can envisage them doing.

I, somewhat sadly, agree with Fade's analysis - LL has decided a number of times to upset a large part of it's community in the chase for elusive (and whilst justifiable in a purely statistical sense) somewhat misleading "total users ever" number.

They decide, they let us moan and bitch, enough people come in new that their metric of success increases, the ones that moan, bitch and leave don't matter - they've paid their way for a bit, but they're only one log in ever...

I've got some fairly soft data that suggests that only about 20% of residents that get far enough to swap calling cards in world remain as long-ish term residents. No idea how many folks don't get far enough to even trade cards though!

SL has always used some odd metrics of success but it's a truism of the target setting culture that the organisation changes behaviour to meet the targets. Free basics are a wonderful example - they add to the "users logged in ever" number quite quickly. If that's a top priority, they'll do it regardless of what we say, unless they think it will hit recruitment.

For what it's worth I run a basic alt. If the $50 a week (that I did "pay" for I bought my basic) vanishes, I won't cry too much. LL might because that alt pays into some groups for find fees etc. and I suspect their accounting is smart enough to cope with no money in the account. I'm toying with upgrading to a premium account for that alt for a couple of reasons.

I know LL can, and has, altered the deal a number of times before - but the current deal is my $9.95/month buys me L$500/week and the right to "own" 512sqm without additional fees. If the amend that to be "alts don't get a stipend" I'd have to think twice. If they amended it to basic alts don't get a stipend, then that's fine and dandy by me. I didn't pay for L$50/week for life (although I won't complain about it either) but without completely rewriting the deal premiums should get the premium stipend.

One change that I might not object to is making the premium account the same as a basic in one sense. Basics only get a stipend if they log in. Premiums get it per week regardless. Alter that little bit - premiums only get their $500 if they log in (maybe they get $50 if they don't, maybe nothing) in any given week.

That won't directly affect the LL apparent prime metric of bums ever, but will affect some of the resident's gripes about lack of bodies (bums on seats sounds too much like camping chairs somehow) compared to reported total numbers. It will chop an unspecified (no data to hand) but potentially huge amount of the money pumped into the system. It might even calm Vasudha in her apparent quest to do away with stipend, it's not a complete victory for her, but it is a compromise that I suspect many of us could live with moderately happily.

The issue of the basic stipend is completely different from the premium stipend, but there's a point to the basic stipend -- keeping the in-world numbers up. Keeping people in-world should make SL a better place for paying customers, all other things being equal.

The problem is, LL is giving basic customers the same "vote" in the popular places sweeps (and associated dwell and (former) DI payments) as premium customers, but premium customers are more valuable to Linden Labs. So people set up camping holes to attract basics with dribbles of cash.

It's not the basic stipend that needs to be nerfed, it's the basic dwell that needs to be cut back or eliminated. Not so much because of its economic effect, but because of its social effect.

No, I am paying to own land. $25 a month in tier. The 500L stipend is used to cover a small part of that not the $9.95 membership. If the stipend is removed then tier raises $2000L a month. More than I want to pay for it. Therefor no reason to have a premium account. I take stipends as SL kicking back part of the costs we already paid. Unfortunate the stipend kickback is a part of the budget I set to spend on SL. I put it torwards tier ($25/month). After the stipend tier is down to around $22ish a month. My budget for SL is $35 a month. That leaves me $3.05US to spend on $L and do whatever with. If th stipends are removed that sets me over my budget.

Also that $35 a month is starting to look a lot better for RL things... SL is not headed in the direction I would like so not much point in staying here. I came for the social aspect. Lately the conversation consist of "are you hiring?" or " your hot, wanna have sex?"..... Also the lag has gotten to ridiculous in the places I usually visit I can't even walk let alone meet anyone. Just as well go to standard chat rooms and forums...

Or leave traffic and kill the popular list alltogether. No list no incentive to top it. Just a thought

Indeed.