Change to Stipend Policy

I once spoke with Philip Linden and he thought a revamping of tier would be a good idea. He mentioned charging people by the sqm per day. Makes a lot of sense to me. The reason he mentioned: it would actually encourage people to buy more land because as it is now, they don't purchase land because they'll go up in tier for an entire month-- even if they only hold the land one day.

So if a person wanted to buy a 1024m piece of land to hold for a friend, if he knew he would only be charged for that exact 1024m piece for each day he holds it, he might be more willing to spend a little to buy that land. As it is now, if it's going to cause his tier to jump $15 to hold a piece of land one day... he's not going to buy it.

So dropping tier altogther and charging a total-square-meters-held per day fee would make a lot more sense. Of course, the more land a person holds, the more of a discount they might get overall... which also would encourage additional land purchases.


There's another BAD thing about tier as it is set up:

If you have tier for say, 1024m of land and you sell 512, you still get charged for that extra 512, even the following month and month after that and month after that, even if you don't own land. In order to drop tier, you actually have to go to the website and reduce tier (an obscure fact, for sure). That just isn't right, paying for virtual land that you don't even own.

Whole system needs restructured.

A good compromise for newbie stipends:

Basic accounts get 50L$ a week for 24 weeks on certain conditions:

First time sign up only, alts get 250L$ and that's that.

They have to have one hour's worth of continuous log in each week. The electricity to run the computer should be more than 50L$. That's 60 full minutes of not logging off. Log off at 59 minutes and 59 seconds and you have to start all over that week or lose the stipend.

Miss a week, you don't get the stipend for that week. Miss three continuous weeks of logging in and you lose the stipend permanently.

This is only 1450L$ for each new account, that includes 250L$ start up. That's if the resident has spent 24 hour long blocks logged in. I would think that the average new account would get less in the 24 weeks because a certain percentage will try the free account and abandon it. Then you have another slice that will miss a week or two. And yet another who will miss 3 weeks and lose the stipend permanently. And then there will be those who sign up for full accounts before the 24 weeks are up.

But the residents who get the full 1450L$ and stay basic accounts are likely to be the ones who will buy L$.

Before anybody starts into hysterics about being paid to play a game, remember that LL is paying around $5 usd for 24 hours worth of time. Which works out to $0.25 an hour. Even illegal workers demand more than that.

Now! Join SL and get even less reason to remain!

Oh, I get it, let us not jeopardize our "relationship" with the people who are playing but not paying anything for it, in order that we can attract fewer new players.

No, wait, this is the old "buy-before-you-try" ploy. Bloody brilliant!

Recommendation: seek future marketing advice from random guy alertly loitering on SOMA street corner at 3:30am on Tuesday. You can get business savvy and a dime vial at the same time!

Is that still true?

If so, where's the web address?

I find it hard enough to even find the details of the available tiers without being redirected to the tiki (I'm sure there used to be an LL page that listed them)..

My last posting on this subject and my family calls me rude. Limiting the new people in the way you want will kill Second Life DEAD. You should just look at your postings. Thank Jesus you have no control over SL. You are silly and getting more silly by the day! Lindens Labs will do what they think is in their best intrests and the intrests of all of the players old and new.

In that case, what are you worried about, and why do you feel the need to launch into 1000 threads with the same post? If what you say is so, then it doesn't matter how many people post something 'silly' about stipends, because, as you say, LL will do as they see fit.

I think the point being made isn't how much LL is paying (US$ wise) to freebie players... it's the fact that they're paying anything at all. I mean, pay people to play SL? It should be enough that they let them play for free.

While I've never tiered down, the few times I considered it the verbiage seemed to state that billing automatically adjusted downward. If you have direct evidence of this not working... I have to ask, do deeded allocation over to some groups? I could see how the land owned by groups, even if there is free allocation left over, could really snarl the "have I sold enough land to tier down" checks.

Then again, it may have changed since the last time I checked, it's been a while. The mechanics of tiering up have changed... I suppose that could impact the process of tiering down.

As to your other point... which I presume is at least partly sarcastic... but if not, you are aware that giving out free lindens is like giving out coupons. LL 'creates' that incentive, they don't "pay" for it. Do you think that more people will reject a bribe to play... or happily take something for free?

That is the reason LL came up with this concept. My concept is that this should all be handled automatically. Computer programs can do that.



Unfortunately, since I own an island and a 512, I'm not tiered at this time so I cannot find the option for tiering down. But as I mentioned, even when I did have tiered land.. that option wasn't all that easy to find. A friend had to tell me about it when I got charged US$15 for land I no longer owned.



Actually, not sarcastic at all. Factual. L$ is paying non-paying members to play their game. This is a point of contention (on both sides) all over these forums. LL is flooding the market with literally millions of free L$ every week... into an economy that is already glutted with L$.

I don't consider this a "coupon". The coupon is the L250 LL gives free to people when they join. After that is gone, they should bear the responsibility themselves for earning/gaining more L$. They can join in contests. They can go to dances and click on a raffle ball. They can (gasp!) actually purchase L$ on the LindeX. Anything but have LL continue to flood an already flooded market.

As far as I can see, there is really no other option. No "sink" imaginable is going to be able to overcome millions of new L$ entering the market every week.

According to TOS, LL isn't paying them since the L$ is worthless. You have to pay LL in RL currency. Casinos will let you cash in their own chips on the premesis. LL doesn't allow that. The only value that L$ has is what people are willing to pay for it. If people are not playing, they will not buy L$ not even at 1,000,000L$/1 usd. Why should they give that dollar to the L$ seller when they can go to the Dollar store and buy something they can have in RL?

People do not need to log into SL. The L$ seller is not selling fuel, food, shelter, or medical care; they are selling entertainment. L$ sellers are competing with the local RL video store for that dollar, L$ sellers are competing against Yahoo, L$ sellers are competing against whatever is playing on television, L$ sellers are competing against the local library, L$ sellers are competing against online gambling sites. The people who have access to computers also have access to thousands of other entertainment venues, all of which are marketing for their dollars.

Why is this concept so hard to understand?