Stippends!!!

I try to actually take economic and feature suggestions seriously.. erring on the side of caution. Wrong side of the street the time. My bad.

i dont "make" money in SL...but i do have my premium account and like being able to spend my weekly stipend buying things those that have "learned how to make money" produce...

duh, take away stipend from premium accounts and how much disposable income will get paid to content creators...?

dumb idea.

I like to be "playful", am not the bad person some people say I am. However I dont like to make it too easy. I am surprised you decoded it so quickly! You are a very smart person.

Let me know how this goes.

Getting rid of stipends won't affect the underlying problem. The $L is declining because people are underbidding each other on the Lindex in order to cash out as quickly as possible. That is what is driving down the value of the $L.

What would be the effects of getting rid of stipends?

Some people might buy $L in order to replace them.
Some people might cancel their premium accounts and go basic.
Some people might just quit.
Some people might not change anything.

But frankly, there is very little worth spending real money on in Second Life. I don't see thousands of residents running out and buying $L to throw away in casinos or playing games. Or buying stuff that can only be used in SL. I spend my stipend like it's free money. I blow it on widgets and houses and bling. But I'm not going to put $L on my credit card to buy junk. I don't think I'm the only one, too.

So I don't see the elimination of stipends causing people to buy the equivalent amount on the Lindex. That would mean some businesses might go under. Nor do I see it ending the competition to sell $L as quickly as possible either. The $L would still sink in value. Maybe a little slower, maybe.

Agreed. The value of the Lindex has been chosen by the sellers not determined by actual money supply.

Do you have to turn your US money into Euros to pay for your US Federal taxes?!? Thats what Linden Lab makes us do already to pay sl taxes. Linden Lab doesnt accept its own currency for the taxes it CURRENLTY has ... like Tier and purchasing of islands and land. In fact, Anshe Chung was banned for a day because she didnt have the US dollars in her account, though she had MORE THAN enough Lindens to cover her tier. The Lindens shut down the largest empire for a day, because the government does not hold any worth in its own currency. If you ask me, this is what needs to change to stop the inflation. Would you like to change your US money into Euros to pay the US government? HOW would that make you feel? What would the US dollar be worth to you then?

Being a Land Baron myself, I have only gone through the Lindex ONCE in ten months because the interest on my 14% credit card in rl is less than the loss I would take through the Lindex. (And I get to be proud that Im not contributing to the inflation) This being said, my account in sl is piling up, where everyday I have about $2K USA dollars in it and in order to buy more land, I have to spend more US dollars. So I ask you, Who REALLY is holding that US money that sits in my sl account?

There goes my last escape from reality, thanks everyone thats hot about taxes! i think it would create more headaches than SL would benefit, more time to police it, as we all know there will be those looking for loopholes. i forsee an SL IRS the likes as weve never seen, and then the tax lawyers come in swooping down down like vultures to claim thier cut..oh god please NOT HERE!!!!

Never fear Linden Labs is CLEANING up...if they arent in the black, geesh id look for a good business manager..the $500 L a week they pay to premium members (by the way is what was promised to all that signed up) should not be breaking either the economy or Linden Labs bottom line, unless they are just very poor managers of their returns.

Sorry LL i don't think most of SL is that stupid to be buying that, why dontcha just come out and say "omg we have all these free accounts in here now, and the subscription ratio looks fantastic, but our bottom line is sucking, so we cant pay traffic and or dwell and or stipends anymore, sorry...but the customer has to suffer too..just the way it is folks.."

LoL gotta love it when greed turns around and bites ya in the ass..im laffin mine off..

I have a better idea. Since SL is cancelling Dwell and more places will soon be charging admittance fees, how about figuring out how much SL used to pay out in DWELL and dividing it up amongst stipends?

Jonas-

If they change their policy regarding stipends, I'd expect the following to happen:

1) Lifetime charter accounts continue receiving their L$500 a week (call it a dividend or whatever on their original $225 purchase)

2) Free Basic accounts switch over effective whenever LL decides.

3) Premium accounts cease receiving stipends at the end of their current billing cycle... in a month for month to monthers, at the end of the billing year for those that pay by the year.

4) Paid for Basic accounts will probably get some arbitrary grace period (say 12 months from inital purchase date) and then switch over.

5) all new account, upgrades/downgrades, and renewals would be based on the new stipend policy.

Regardless of the consequences and ramifications, the "I'm paying for my stipend" argument only really counts until the next renewal. (which for lifetime charters doesn't really count)

I'd rather they did it the other way around.

If they really did kill the premium stipend... I'd be selling all my land for whatever I could get for it and tiering down to Basic as soon as the announcement was made... or even as soon as there was really good evidence that it was going down. But there would be such a glut of land on the market, I expect that I'd end up having to abandon it...

This would pretty much be the end of the Linden Estate, maybe the end of Linden Labs.

Jopsy - And many wouldn't renew unless they compensated for the loss of stipend. At this point with the sales slump, I could (with my sl wife) drop to basic and rent.

First dwell, now stipends, im sorry but this is ridiculous. If we removed the stipend people would loose buisness because some people make purchases with their STIPENDS. We pay for the stipends each month and if they were removed the only point of a basic account would be to hold land with no incentives but hoping somone buys L. Just because people are on a free account and want money too dosent mean you need to remove the incentives to the Basics. Free accounts are fine and do generate buisness but when your paying 10 dollars a month for nothing, unless your holding land its crazy. If the stipends are removed the Tier fees should drop dramatically.

---We interrupt this thread for a partial topic derailment.---

Take my stippend, whatever the hell that is.

But try to take my stipend, and I'll break your fingers.


---We now return you to our regularly-scheduled pissing and moaning.---

- thank you for the brief, yet, much needed announcment -

Um....#1 I'm not about to prostitute my digital self to make $L's. #2 I don't have the time to start a business and don't have enough free time to be a dependable builder. #3 SL is a platform for gaming and socializing for me, not for business. #4 once again why should LL cater to the relatively few who want to make RL $$ off SL rather than the MANY who don't care a bit what the value of the $L is? I still say that if the $L gets too low the people who are here to make $$ may leave along with their content. If they do it will be a temporary loss but there are many struggling people who will step up and take their places. I say anyone who takes the risk of putting their hard earned RL $$ into a digital world that could crash, blow up completely, disappear at any second, or many other things I probably havn't thought of are doing just that taking a RISK! If that risk pays off, great, if not well, it was a risk. Why punish the majority for those few risk takers. Now if you go into this for fun and end up making a bit of a profit off it, more power to you, but don't get greedy and try to make the game more expensive or less fun for those who come for fun because you want to keep making more and more of a profit!

I think the answer is to standardize the value of the $L...set it in stone so this debate can finally end.

(and Jonas)

I totally understand that...

I'm no less adamant about the need for stipends.

My point was that the contractual obligation to pay stipends with a subscription plan doesn't always mean: 'in perpetuity'.

However, if stipends did go... honestly, I would stay premium because I'm loath to the idea of renting, and personally my stipend is rather meaningless to me.

Personally, if LL did do something atrocious like remove stipends across the board (and I still think it would be more damaging if the basic accounts lost their's)... perhaps tier fees would come down some as an incentive.

I don't see this as a problem anymore (stipends). They continue to remove Lindens given out and yet the value still falls or at least has been holding steady at 300L. Maybe this is the new rate that we should just expect to see for a while. If they did remove or partially remove the stipends, it won't stop all of this underbidding of the sellers that has happened. There are more possible bad effects of removal than good. Plus there still needs to be a money supply to account for all of the money sinks and new players coming in.
Perhaps this incredible jump in new accounts will help the value strenthen.

Renting I wouldn't like..I like the 'image' of owning. But since me and Casey only really need eachother, then we could even be homeless and we wouldn't care.

Alot might dump their land and go back to basic, the ones without any vested interest in their land other than a small plot with a home, and go to renting either land or a condo, and just dump in cash for any L they want to spend. Then you guessed it LL gets a percentage of that just for converting it to L.

But then theres ppl like Mart and i that have consistantly grown in SL, making business judgements on what we were led to believe would be there as LL promised, as in dwell, traffic and stipend. We stand to lose alot if SL bellies up over all of this. Its truely the land owner/business thats being affected here. i still say they are shooting themselves in the foot over this one. i suggest they hire a "real economist" one with a few miles on them, yes Lindens, there is life over 40 and wisdom too..FYI i dont buy the African Dictator theology you have adopted over not keeping your agreement to the business/land owners of SL, and the premium account holders here.

Were taking a wait and see attitude, well were over a barrel, like we have a choice here, they've pretty much got us by the proverbial short ones..

Nope, the only obligation they have to provide a stipend is that of corporate survival.