Basic user startup money and stipends

I strongly believe that LL has made a mistake in not giving free users 250l starting cash and some form of allowance. The allowance could be 50l for the first week and go down 10l a week till it runs out in week 5. By then new users will see the value of SL and either buy more lindens or join as premier. I think a lot of potential new users are being lost due to the lack of a few lindens.

In a related note - I've seen my sales drop significantly since the change to no startup money and no stipend. Has anyone else experienced this drop?

Decreased sales, increase in panhandling and griefers.

Yesh - What kinda user experience is it if you start out having to bed for money?

But then I always said Linden was making a horrible error for the bvenefit of a few day traders. Sales in world are in the toilet since no new folks have money to get the nice toys they want. Thier first reaction now being that they can't get good stuf and can't find ANY paying work in world to cover costs. Removal of dwell was another error. Especially when viewed in light of how some merchants took this as an excuse to raise prices and now that things have reversed they are not lowerring them back down. The whole thing was greed motivated. I just want to earn enough to pay my rent and maybe to buy a few things in world myself. If I want to make a ton of RL money of a chat I'll go back to schol and design a new chat and charge a membership fee like LL does.

why can they pay a world of warcraft subscription and not a few L$ from the lindex? its a question i will never get answered

Kyrah, I think what you were saying is why don't new users buy Lindens on the Linex?

Here's my though on that. Linden Labs advertize the "free" nature of joining SL. If once you get in the first thing you face is the need for lindens to do most everything in the world it can seem like bait and switch to the new user.

Having experience in SL I understand the value of buying lindens and what they are really a good value for what you can buy and do. New users may not understand this just give up.

My two cents.

It's also safe to say, being the smart ass that i am, that people who play(ed) would not be attracted to this game thus nulling the ad hominem on pay to play games.

Microplay currencies are not perfect, but this is what we have to work with.

I disagree. You can do pretty much ANYTHING in SL without spending a cent, the only thing you CAN'T do is buy stuff. Even then there are hundreds of freebies floating around. Going to clubs, events, Tringo, Slingo, building, scripting, exploring, driving the Linden buggy in your inventory....all free. Aside from shopping, what are the other things you spend money on? You're not going be ultra sexy bling kings and queens but you're not limited from doing most of the things SL has to offer.

Aside from that I don't know that's bait and switch, we're supposed to be all adults here, most adults have learned you don't get something for nothing very often.

n00bs who can't pony up the cash to buy a few linden dollars aren't going to pony up the cash to buy land and pay LL tier. As such, they become a drain on resources for LL. Free loaders who don't pay 1 red cent.

Remember folks, (Free) Accounts don't exist for the purpose of ratching up the population count. Their purpose is to give n00bs a taste of SL. If they like it, they start to pony up the money and paying land tier fees. Putting money into LLs pockets and actually adding to the GDP of SL.

Anti-Stipend Party: 1
Pro-Stipend Party: 0

Hahahahahah..... Victory.... Inch my inch we are winning this battle to get rid of stipends.

I agree with ReserveBank. The start-up stipend was an incentive to explore SL and experiment with the UI. I just recently (and coincidently) posted an opinion on my blog about this very thing. (fp-sl.blogspot.com/2006/07/sl-is-missing-something.html - please forgive the shameless self-promotion.)

CORRECTION

Anti-Stipend Party: 1
Pro-Stipend Party: 5

I ahve a group of people want stipends back so YOU LOSE

Well take this thread for example...
/108/54/119746/1.html

What you have there is a new person enjoying himself and learning quickly but having a real issue with being able to have enough L$ to upload textures.

Perhaps it isn't necessary to give basic accounts a weekly allowance, but it seems giving them a small amount of money just to start out with is more likely to give them a taste for more and make them want to buy more.

Even the drug dealer on the corner understands this concept.
"The first taste is free, then ya gotta pay for it."

Someone else mentioned it and I've noticed it too... less first time customers, more beggers, more camping zombies.

Like L$250 just for providing payment info on signup?... oh wait...

Mmmm yes. starting with 0L$ and no stipend is a pain. can't even buy a 1L$ freebee.

We have a strong french community, and usually the new-newbie ask "where can i find this, or that, for free". And it will be 1L$, so we fly around with him, looking for a place with a 1L$ item he like, and give him 1L$ when he found the good item

It's more fun and a good way to be friend with newbie

Additionally : yes. i'm earning a lot less money than usual this month, but my "customer" aren't ppl that live on stipend... Mmmm.... holiday ?

Money Trees. If I remember I could pick 50L in an hour or less before the teleport change.

I find it hard to believe sales are down. Mine are ok and were really good the first week of July. Isn't the volume on the Lindex very strong as of late? Also if sales are slightly down, it still possible to get the same dollar amount compared to when the value on the Lindex was 330/1.

My sales are fine.

Perhaps if your sales are down after the loss of free account stipends, you're not making anything good enough for people to want to spend real money on.

Musuko.

Though I'm not sure who you're addressing if anyone, I didn't say my sales were down, I said there are fewer first time customers. Fewer new people buying. I think (and just my opinion, take it or leave it) is that part of the problem is that LL has created a new community of people who start off accustomed to not having any money. This is both good and bad.

It is good in that those who choose to stay will likely learn to create their own things and may never need to bother buying L$. Thats good for them AND good for content creation in SL.

It is bad for current merchants, those of us who WANT people to buy L$ and go crazy with them in our stores. And of course all these new content creators may eventually be merchants wishing the same thing.

So it's good and it's bad.... but as a merchant, I lean toward thinking this is bad and must be fixed, give them money to shop in my store now!! (This was half in jest btw in case you can't tell, though if the Lindens decided to do it I'd be very pleased.)

It's not good for merchants to give large amounts of free money to new players: because you'll find the value of the Linden devalued by a proportionate amount when you come to cash that money out (because of all the extra Lindens being created with no equal value provided to represent them), equalling no net gain to you.

Musuko.

Perhaps the answer lies in giving lindens to new users for activities that get us started in the right direction. If there were startup activities that both educate and integrate the new users into Second life that also paid a small startup sum or even offered merchandise as a prize for completing it would make better citizens and reduce the begging.

Too many times you need to take a job that is pretty degrading or outright immoral to get started before you know what other options there are.

On the other hand I have found most citizens of second life to be friendly and very very helpful if you just ask nice and dont whine. There are the others... just say in my fist week I was shot twice, assaulted and had lewd acts demanded of me a few times.

I agree. Giving a small sum for completing some activities that show mastery of basic skills would be a great way to demystify gameplay while providing some startup cash.
On the issue of jobs, I agree that most jobs are really shady. But then, lots of areas frown on sales jobs, which seem like a natural fit for a social community. As an example, the newspaper The Democrat has started hiring newsies rather than going with vending machines, partly to give needy people meaningful work. But they've been asked to leave/kicked out of several places where there are no visible indications that you shouldn't sell there. Maybe this attitude needs to change, so more work outside of building objects is available.

Then how did you fail to keep LL from taking away stipends to free accounts? Hahahahah Seems to me that more stipends are being taken away, then given. Your party is losing its political clout. Don't let those radicals who want free everything take over youyr party.

The start-up stipend helped me explore the world and practice using the UI. I coincidently wrote an opinion about this very subject on my blog at: fp-sl.blogspot.com/2006/07/sl-is-missing-something.html .

Add one for the Pro-Stipend Party.

Once again, millions of people pay/paid $15.00 per month to play Worlds of Warcrafts and many other online games. There is no doubt that many of our resident newbies did also, and probably still do. They didn't/don't hesitate to pay $15.00 to play these other online games, but we residents in SL should feel sympathy because they can't bring themselves to fork over a one-time fee of $1 for an initial L$300 to play around with, in a platform that lets you join and become a fully participating resident for FREE?

It's hard to sympathize with that logic.

SecondLife is not a charity organization. They need people to pay like all of these other online games. They allow you free access to their platform so that you can come in and spend money. Not so that they can give you money and let you frolic about for FREE!

Show your appreciation for this wonderful platform and contribute to their financial success for a change. The more we support the SL platform financially, the better the product we will have going forward.

Now there's a great idea! After the normal tutorial gave a second "sandbox" island they take lessions in object creation, AV modification, attachment, positioning, editing and simple scripting. When each task is completed they "earn" 50 lindens for learning it. LL would need to decide what "completed" was. They can only do each task once to earn the lindens. This educates and rewards "real users" - alt's wouldn't bother.

Pro-stipend Party:6

atleast this party is growin so like i say again "you lose" and stipends are back not starting but weeky active accounts