What Would Happen if Stipends Were Limited

Now that they are getting rid of basic stipends.

Let's say that each new premium player is paid 4000L over the course of 1 month.
After that, the player no longer gets stipends.
This means that for each player that joins the game, 4000L gets put into the economy.
After that, they no longer have regular income from stipends.

Players might need to buy stuff, pay for photos/uploads, and other things they use Ls on.
But if they run out of Ls, that does not mean that the Ls are no longer circulating somewhere.

The might want to use other methods to get Ls. For example, start selling land/items or start getting traffic on your land for dwell, etc.

If they can't do that, there is always the Lindex to buy Ls from all the people selling Ls.

No matter what, Ls will always remain in the economy. 4000 for every new player plus all the Ls that were already there, plus any Ls that are fed in through dwell and such.

What would the effect of this be?

4000 $L is about 14.25 USD, even if you only pay 10 USD for the account. Plus the referral effect.

Farming issue?

To effectively crush any new content creators who rely on the stipend to manage upload fees and what-not while learning how to use SL.

My understanding is that Basic stipends are not going away. Or at the very least, no official announcement has been made yet that indicates that.

If Linden did get rid of Basic stipends, I think it would probably create a nominal amount of drama, but folks would adapt.

If Linden got rid of Premium stipends, I think it would probably create a legendary amount of drama.... but folks would adapt.

I agree. I think there would be upset people. Some people would leave SL for good. The value of the $L would go up, and life would go on as normal with people missing their US$.20/week, or US$2.00/week, that they paid US$1.50-US$2.50 to get.

Don't let the cold hard facts get in the way of the juicy fabrication posted over and over and over by the OP.

Drhama is a valuable commodity in SL, do not squander it!

Then I suspect most of the Premium players sell their First (and only) Land for another couple of thousand and drop back to Basic, and Linden Labs loses about a million dollars a year income.

I, like many, would sell ym land and drop to basic. Why pay 15.50$ a month and onyl add costs when I get nothing monetarilly in world for it?

I could pay 5$ a month, buy Lindens from the lindex, and remain basic, and end up getting -more- linden dollars per month.

Now imagine just half the disheartened premium members dropping accounts. LL would either replace stipends as they were, or begin to lose money drastically. If they then cut free accounts off, they would be forced to pay people for the Lindens they held (or face pontetial lawsuit form thsoe that put money in- or be forced to declare bankruptcy, either of which could end SL), and then they would continue in a downward spiral. Im'm already getting less than my moneys worth, on a numbers basis, but at the moment the enjoyment factor plays in. Cut the premium stipend and thats gone..thats my characters paycheck for the 'work' he does in persona while I am at real world work. (Not logged on mind you, no farming or scripts) To remove the premium stipend, or even reduce it would kill Linden Labs support structure.

By suggesting that folks will adapt, I'm just saying that we've had a LOT of major changes that caused a disturbance since I've been here. Every time, some folks indeed leave SL, some folks claim the apocolypse, and in time... things settle back to a degree of normalcy. The folks that remain - adapt.

IMHO, removing the Basic account stipend is an inevitability (although hypothetical).

However, when it comes to Premium accounts, Linden needs to do things that make those accounts more attractive, not less. If they want to mess with the stipend on premium accounts, they'll have to have some other replacement "Carrot" that will encourage folks to sign up, lest Linden's goal for more premium signups will be harder met.

I don't believe we'll be seeing Premium account stipend changes anytime in the near future.

Note adapting does not mean status quo is held thougn.. it often fades.

Way to keep the shelter growin' man but we can't all do that kind of magic

How would it crush them?
LS would still be circulating in the economy for us to get right?

But you see, I paid US$225.00 for a lifetime account that the contract said would include 500 lindens a week. I would consider it a very serious matter if the L$500 were stopped.

I would not be happy.