Change to Stipend Policy

As you know we've been reducing the amount of L$ being put into the currency pool as one way that we are managing the Second Life economy. Bonus payments for traffic were reduced by 50% last week, and will be completely phased out on June 13.

In addition, effective Monday, May 29, we will no longer offer a L$50 weekly stipend to NEW basic account holders.

Existing basic account holders will continue to receive their L$50 stipend on the weeks they log in. Premium account holders, both new and existing, will be unaffected.

Yay

About time too!

Now shut off the land tap for a while and we might just get back to something resembling normality.

Not a perfect result, but near it. Thanks Robin, now maybe these loons will stop ranting.

Well done Robin, and team. Thank you.

Now please fix the Lindex so all sellers understand and can view the best rate the can get.

They are shown the best rate they can get at the time their web page is delivered to them. Remember the market is active and fluid. In the distance future, we may find that we need to provide streaming quotes of LindeX activity. However, for the moment please refresh your page to get the latest price quotes.

Yay!

Now how about some additional tier levels? There is a lot of cash income being lost because the jump from $40 to $75 is pretty steep and the jump from $75 to $125 is even steeper....

Yeah, I know I'm being greedy...but if you don't ask, you don't get!

I don't think this is what he's talking about, Chris. He's talking about people who haven't set advanced view. They may think that selling at the "market rate" is their only option. I agree with the idea that everyone should see their options when selling lindens.

Not sure if cutting newbie stippends is good, since I figure they entice them to buy more L$, but PLUG

/130/19/109242/1.html

Can we have the Lindex completely intergrated in the ingame UI? So we can trade ingame instead of haveing to go to the webpage.

I'd love an in game trading floor

Ouch!

What is the difference between switching to a window in game and switching to a window (web browser) on your desktop?

Do you use SL in fullscreen mode?


I'm asking because I have a phobia of new and unnecessary features being added to the SL client.

It is faster to click on a button ingame than opening a browser window and clicking through the links.

I thought the ability to buy lindens in the client was already there? As in, can complete the transaction there and have your L$ in hand without leaving the clinet (assuming you have a registered method of paying for 'em).

Nope, I just tested it and can switch form the game to the Lindex and back to the game in 1 sec.

It is. Its between your sl time and cash amount at the top.

I think this is going to be a bad idea.

People who live on their stipend do not have the perception that they can get everything they want in the world just on their stipend, so they have no need to buy L$. Instead, they'll settle for what they can get without having to pay any real money.

There is no reason to suggest that they will not continue doing that. They'll just get less, feel worse, and not stick around so much. The long tail will be chopped off the consumer market and it'll be harder for new sellers to get started. Meanwhile, the L$ will continue to fall, since there will still be more sellers than buyers because there were before.

And those people who teach newbie building/texturing classes will have to give out free L$ to the new folks so they can upload anything. Can we count how many weeks until that starts being gamed?

I would have preferred a 5-6 week stipend limit on basics. By that time they should know if they want premium, how to make money, or if they even want to play on SL. But at least SOMETHING was done to make premium look better to buy into.

While I can understand the political reasoning of stopping the L50 stipend for new freebie accounts (ie, keeping the current vocal horde happy) it has to be realized that it is the current stipend situation that has been at least partially responsible for the current market glut of L$.

In April of 2006, LL paid out 49, 935,550 in stipends.
Total sinks were 17, 785,205
Total sources were 59,277,885

This is directly from the new LL economic site. Personally, I'd like to see the Stipend figures separated between Premium and Basic stipends. But all in all, this shows that LL during April poured 50 MILLION L$ in stipends into the economy.

All in all, they poured 59+ mil, but only sank 17.8 mil, with a resulting overflow of 41,492,680

Stipends for Premium members is a contracted amount. Part of the US$ paid by premium members is for L$; that's the agreement.

But aside from keeping the masses soothed, it has to be realized that there are still a ton of L$ that are being poured into the economy every week to non-paying players. Since L$ are worth actual money, this means these folks are actually getting paid to play a game.

Now I know the policy of cutting all freebie stipends might be unpopular and I know why LL made this particular decision-- it will prevent additional damage while preventing outrage in certain sectors (ie, those who don't think it's worth 16 cents a week to play Second Life). But the bottom line is this: while this decision by LL is a good one and will prevent making the current situation worse... it doesn't solve the current situation. They're still dumping millions of unwarranted L$ every week into an already glutted devaluating market. So it's somewhat a matter of preventing new holes in the dam... but the current ones are still busted full flow.

I think this was ok. Now lets wait and see if it helps out along with the removal of dwell. May get worse before it gets better. Also if they fix the Lindex seller page for basic view not to just show "Market Sell".

No skin off my alvatar!

Robin-

Any plans to increase or reduce the signup bonus of L$250?

I hear you. Give them enough crack to get them hooked. (Bad example, bad.)

Indeed... limited time stipends are nice in a sense they allow someone who actually wants to start a 'SL business' to give it a try with relatively low entry cost. Now, removing stipends from alt accounts from the get-go is another matter entirely, but to do so from all new people... that feels like getting a bit overboard.

But oh well. Guess people can start looking for another scapegoat to whine about, now.