Why the economy can't be fixed...

When is the next season of Battlestar Galactica coming on?
Those dumb fools got trapped and the Cylons rolled in and
took over...

How do we know?
We know that the amount of people MAKING things as independent business to sell is outstripped by those who consume, but do we know that those same people not interested in actually creating a business might not be interested in taking part in another business if there was money to be had? Problem is, the only business that works with is escorts because a system has been created where workers aren't needed and we're trying to base an economy off that.

The problem isn't the stipends. You have to have money coming into the system, since the business owners aren't pumping it back into the system. You have a one way economy and thats not stable, it doesn't take a rocket scientist or tons of data to realize that that is a bad idea.

Its nice that the business owners think that taking away the money they pay for every month with their fees will encourage people to then spend real world money so that their virtual money will be worth more and make more.
You have to be the most self-centered individuals I have ever seen.

You seem to think the entire population will have no problem throwing away money hand over fist to make you rich. I hope you include a compimentary tube of KY with every product sold.

I think there should be higher tax placed on business owners. Anyone owning more than the 512 lot should have to pay taxes based on income.

I don't think you realize what effect a completely broken economy is going to have on this, when it finally collapses, there won't be anything left.

If you have something to add to the discussion do so, otherwise go be an attention whore somewhere else.

Hey. Easy killer. I opened a store because I wanted low prim furniture for my first 512 and everything I could buy that was low-prim had all the style of a brick. So I made a few lines of furniture and rented some land and opened a store. All I wanted was to be able to make enough Lindens to support the business. The business has been far more successful than my expectations. It makes real actual cash, and now i do treat it like a business and not like a game.

I buy what I want to buy - beleive me, I contribute to the coffers of plenty of other SL creators - and at the end of the month, I cash out what's left. That hardly makes me evil, or self centered either.



You're blaming people for creating products other people want??? We should what, stop doing that?

I don't feel entitled to the money I make in SL, and I don't think anyone is obligated to shop with me, or cushion my tier or anything like that. But I'm very pleased that SL is putting food on my table right now. I'm not going to apologize for that.



Oh good, that excludes me since I still only own a 512 That system is flawed but the idea of income tax has been debated to death already. I'm not that interested in going over that again.

Wanna see how much work it is to be an event host? Event venue owner? And then see what it pays? =D If so I'd be happy to hire you at standard rates. heh. doh, except i have no way to recoup my cost so nvm.

Gabe, you said you were in the market for more really overpriced land, didn't you?

Yes, they are valuable in an emotional way, but they aren't able to "buy stuff to make it more fun." In RL such a person would be able to have a job as a bartender or counsellor. In sl, they are friends. I have lots of friends in sl and that's a lot of fun. at one time, I would have been sad not to be able to shop though, also. Now, pfft. who needs to shop? I'd pay someone to come clean the shite outta my inventory. And with my SL finances going into sharp steady decline, I don't have money to shop anyway.

The point isn't my finances, though. It is the stickiness of the platform. I'm thinking losing dwell means the loss of public space which means less stickiness which means less money for people who make products good enough to warrent a return customer.

The problem is you can't have an economy with unemployment, and if everyone is a business owner, no one needs anything from anyone else, unless like I pointed out its extremely time consuming to make.

Take away the stipends, everyone becomes a business owner because they don't have 50-100 to throw at the game every month.

Your business has been succesfull, likely in large part due to the stipends.
now you'd want to take those away to make hte money you make more valuable and expect everyone to foot the bill out of pocket for it. Thats pure greed.

No, but I blame you and others for wanting the stipend gone to make your money more valuable and destroy the economy even further.

Why not? You want to run a real life business paying for your real life things. If we're trying to create a working economy it should resemble one. The government has its bills to pay, and since there are no workers to tax, they should tax the business owners to pay those bills.

Infact I think thats a super idea.
Lets kill the stipends, which means you can expect people won't really want to pay $10 for nothing if they're not owning a business and the lands not terribly important to them. Lets have linden figure out the cost of running each server and their business and take it off the backs of the business owners, through set fees and a percentage of income. I used to work for a management company that based their rent on their square footage compared to their monthly income. You'll see a drop in customers becuase all that money will be removed from the economy, good news is your money value might go up. You could end up losing a large percentage of your customer base. Land values will plummet..everyone will be having stores on 512 lots, 57 stories high..
I think you highly overestimate the amount of people willing to pay more and more to keep you above water. I think we should implement that system immediately.

You can't? So everyone in your country is fully employed? Because they're not in mine, yet strangely there is still an economy here. Now too much unemployment in an economy is bad, yes.

I meant to say massive unemployment, which is what exists in SL..if you're not a business owner, chances are you're unemployed. Most economies don't survive much more than "a little" unemployment before collapsing or becoming extremely poor.
Considering how dysfunctional the economy is, its not going to be very resilient, and change needs to take place at a point before its too late, because this isn't exactly something that has a lot of wiggle room. Countries can collapse and be rebuilt, but something like SL that collapses, if something up and takes its place, SL will likely never recover from something like like that.

Well, we *have* to have an economy with high "unemployment", because, as mentioned, a lot of people - I suspect the majority - don't want jobs and don't need them.

Yes, I think was thinking before, it would be hard to say if unemployment was massive in SL or not for this reason. In my country at least, the unemployment is measured by those actively looking for work. "I don't want to work in SL, I just want to have fun" (fair enough), is expressed commonly enough for me to think that there maybe a roughly equivalent number of people who don't want to work as do.

Jinsar's arguments might be valid if SL were a simulation of RL economies, but in fact it's an unique, real-world economy. We're not playing a game here in which Phillip Linden must keep his civilization sufficiently employed to avoid drone riots or cultural takeovers. What we have is a kind of rarefied tourist economy, in which the only "jobs" that have value are those that fulfil some fantasy of the employee while also paying their own way (in fantasy or L$ value) with the employer. In the meantime, any number of people can enhance the tourist experience with unique accessories and souvenirs, but it remains an economy based on the influx of funds from an outside source (namely USD), rather than the generation of livelihood within our borders.

It's true our economy can't be "fixed," because it's not a game economy. The props can only be removed, and the beast allowed to fly or fall under its own power.

Do you have any idea though? Its actually not even a matter of whether or not they want the jobs, its a matter of the fact that they don't exist.
The amount of campters I've seen is indication enough that people want to make money in another way beyond having their own business.



And these types of economies are always highly unstable and prone to collapse on a whim.
Tourist economies also often survive because people have to consume a lot while there.
There is no need for consumption, and anyone so inclined can learn to make it all themselves.
You also seem to think that people should be paying more and more each month to support the business owners.
As inflation continues the L$ will drop mor and more and the business owners will whine more and more because suddenly they're making nothing. The "consumers" are still only getting $2000 L$ a month, but suddenly everyone is charging 2-3 times what they used to charge for stuff because the $L is trading at 800 per USD. Those who don't really need or use their land wil realize they'ld be financially better off letting their account go and just buying $9-$10 worth of L$ everymonth. Which will cause $L to either shut down sims or take more from the land owners to recoop the cost.

If people can't see that, maybe they deserve their fate.

I hate to say it but I think that the answer is to leave things alone the way they are and let the $L continue to drop if necessary. I suspect it would eventually stabilize anyway. Some of the big content creators would probably get out, some land barons would probably pull out too, but I don't think the content of SL would suffer much. There are hundreds of struggling creators that would happily take their place. Again I say by "stabilizing the economy" LL is catering to the FEW who make US$ off of $L instead of the majority of people who could care less what the value of the $L is.

You are absolutely correct. When I post want ads to try to find people to hire, I usually get two or three replies to each ad. I'm not mobbed by all these mythical unemployed masses that want to work.

Of those two or three, I generally find that one or two of them weren't really serious about working, they never complete the first assignment they take.

I'm talking about creator sorts of jobs here, texture work, prim work...

No one even replied to my sales position that's been open for months!

So if there's a vast unemployed mass that wants to work, they sure don't seem to read the want ads very much.

I don't check out want ads because everytime I look for stuff to do it's all casino this and escort that. Enough with the bloody casinos already. We need more arcade machines and carnivals. As for unemployment stuff, when I arrived, my first idea was one of those carts that people on the beach have - you know, the old guy with the cart that jingle-jangles and plays music and stuff. Have like little exapmples of your work hanging off of it and it'd be a mobile store except the owner is always around to answer your questions and take donations .
Now that I've neen here for a few months though, I'm getting used to the lifestyle here. I believe the best things to make, are the things I wanted to buy when I wasn't premium and had no money. Make those and sell em for dirt cheap to newbies!

- Mike

I've had the same experience. I've advertised several times to hire scripters to write scripts for my builds, including this week. I always state that I'm prepared to pay well also. I've never got more than one response, and with similar results to yours. They are either so immature in their approach I wouldn't consider them, or if I do hire them, they haven't finished, or left me with a buggy script that I've paid for and can't use, then they drop out of SL.

Ad: So if anyone does want scripting work, I need scripts for the prefabs I'm working on and for custom jobs. I will pay well.

Economies don't stabilize on their own unless they're created in some working fashion.
A tourist economy doesn't "stabilize" as inflation rises, and people jump ship and it becomes even harder and more expensive for people to afford to visit, the economy doesn't "stabilize" it falls apart.

Have a look at some real world economies that rely on tourist dollars and see what happens when something happens to effect that tourism. The economy falls apart. When the economy in SL falls apart, the game will die or be reduced to a ghost town.

Where do you advertise those jobs? I posted above a list of what a user would find by putting "job" in find all. The vast majority were either escore or casino related, for a grand total of about 15 jobs.

Again, where do you have it? No sales position came up when I searched for jobs.


I recall there was one person offering to do scripts when I did "job" search and found that job kiosk. You might check there.

Man, it always gets me, the way so many people come into Second Life and want to work. It boggles my mind, it really does. Just think how much stuff would get done if people had that attitude in RL.

The alternative is to have the economy collapse and the game die.
It doesn't have to be "hard" work, there simply needs to be ways that people can provide services for business owners that is worth $L to help stimulate the economy and create something much more functionable.

See, this is what I mean. You'll find that most scripters aren't interested in doing just any old job, at least not if they're any good - perhaps if they're interested in the topic, or they're just starting out and need experience, or they're bored. They don't *need* to do things they don't enjoy, not in SL. Quite frequently they write code all day in an office that they're not interested in, and for far less reward or during their off-hours they're not going to bother.

(Also - and this is clearly not aimed at you personally, I have no idea what you're offering - I think a lot of scripters have had the experience of people radically undervaluing their time and expecting custom scripts and support for peanuts. "Right, twelve hours of scripting and tweaking and testing, plus changing it whenever I feel like it in the future, for something I'll be selling... L$2000 do?" So they're pretty suspicious of ads.)

I can see this carrying on to all sorts of other forms of employment. When the ratio of reward vs unpleasantness of doing a job starts to go down past a certain threshold people aren't going to take it, the reward is a lot lower in SL, the unpleasantness is a lot higher if these are supposed to be your off-hours and there's no compulsion to earn something or starve.

A good economy is not needed for the game (I assume you're talking about SL when you say that and not the game of playing at businesses) to survive.

For some of us, having this platform available "for free" is the fun; I never expect to do much more than break even, but I have fun in part because it does not cost me anything.

If I were expected to pay a lot of money, I'd want a whole lot more content than Linden Labs provides. I'd be in WOW or EQ or something.

I'm still not sure I see the problem.

Any 'have' can offer something of value to a 'have not'

Everyone HAS something. Money, Time, Curiosity, Desires, Talent, Content, Popularity, Land, Knowledge ....

There are enough people looking for one or more of those things for their own purposes that an 'exchange of surpluses' occurs. Sometimes for L$'s, sometimes in trade.

We don't need 80% of the population "employed" so long as what people bring WITH them to SecondLife is of value to other people in SecondLife.

Even if that value is only a short term 'tourist-like consumer', so long as the volume of tourists is steady or grows.

We don't need housekeeping for the thousands of hotel rooms at this resort... we don't need food servers in the restaurants at this casino, or janitors at this stadium.

And not having them is not having a negative impact on SecondLife's economy.

--
Jopsy

Example: what percentage of the people who use the web are employed via it?

The latest ones were posted on the jobs board here on the forums. I've also posted classified ads under the "jobs" category in-game. Those are expired now, however.