Vasudha Linden - "the economy does not need stipends to sustain it.”

And just like in real life, if you don't have money, you don't get to buy luxuries. EVERYTHING in SL is a luxury.

True... but as everything - such as clothes, skins, furniture, weapons, vehicles, housing, shoes, hair, etc, is unnecessary, don't you think that would put a lot of players who create this 'rich content' that we are all supposed to enjoy, out of business?

Otherwise we'd all be walking round as newbie clones looking the same, wondering why there was nothing to do, because everyone was on free accounts and apart from a couple of laggy clubs, the welcome area, infohubs and Bush signs, the world would be bare?

You have to *have* money to make it. Without my weekly stipend, I'd soon run out of money to upload textures, to go with the things I am creating to sell. I don't sell much in my store because I don't have much time to devote to promoting and publicising it at the moment. Which means if I have nothing to sell, I can't make any more money to make more stuff.

Lewis

No. If you want to participate in the economy, like, you want to buy things, even if thats texture uploads, or marketing your own product, then you need money.

But why this attitude that you deserve to get it for free? It's friggin money! I don't think there should be any stipend or any 'free money' at all. If you want to participate you buy L$. If you dont want to participate - dont.

There will always but always be people who don't think their Second Life should be handed to them free on a plate who will buy the stuff content creators make. Whilst it might not seem like it from reading the forums, I think the self-righteous freeloader types are actually a minority. One SL would presumably not miss one bit.

I second this. I Have a premium acount for the stipend. The 512m of free land that goes with it is trivial and given a choice I'd trade it for more $L.

(If I want to have land, I buy tier seperately. Which is what I do. I'm currently at the 1/2 sim level. 512m is a *tiny* amount of land, useless for doing anything interesting with.)

As for jobs, there is no way in hell I'm going to use my free time to come on SL and "work" for less than minimum wage [1] in what is primarily recreation time. I think that this attitute would be likely if you asked the majority of other premium users.

[1] The minimum wage thing is important too. For US players hiring other US players to work in SL, are they going to follow federal law in terms of compensation? If LL is ignoring this when looking at creating "jobs", then they're likely due for a very rude awakening before too long.

Actually I remembered you were selling some of your land in Meins, I bought one of the plot right by my shop . You did have a large expanse of land and I hope the sell helped you get more land elsewhere, it was certianly convenient for us given location.

512 m2 is nothing.. you need at least 1024 to have a average home with all the furniture, and more for detailed.

The only 'free money' handed out is the L$50 a week given to basic acconts. The L$500 premium weekly stipend is not a 'bonus', it is part of the package that I signed up for as part of the $9.95 monthly fee.

Whilst it is indeed true that LL can change their mind any time, I just think it would be a seriously bad move if there is no reduction in monthly fee of whatever L$500 a week works out at these days.

Remove stipends, but remove the monthly fee and just pay the land tier fees. Buy L$ when you need them. I think that's probably the only solution that wouldn't lose thousands of premium accounts out of the small percentage there are anyway. I'd love to know how many actual paid monthly accounts there are as opposed to all the freebie basics.

Lewis

Well, that's the theory. But you can't be in SL for very long to realise that the people who really are rich and beautiful and popular are the content creators. Once you know that it becomes difficult or impossible to "play" it, and if you can't then why spend money trying? In at least some sense, you have to be a creator if you want to be beautiful - buying a no-modify avatar shape from someone else is a rather depressing experience. But after the second or third time when the sexy av contest is won by someone wearing an outfit they made themselves specifically to look good on them, the message is pretty loud and clear.

It seems that SL now has the same dream->reality check->settle cycle as RL does when you're a child, and an awful lot of people don't seem to survive beyond the "settle" point. And if they do, they're less likely to buy L$ - after all, if you're going to be stuck "settling" either way, why not settle for what you can get for free?



And probably, different kinds of content.

Personally I'd be interested to find out Vasudha Linden's "qualifications" for the position of 'economic expert'.

Whilst I have no doubt that the real life credentials were sufficient to satisfy LL to appoint to the position, it's all well and good to have all the theory but what may work in first life may not work in Second.

Although of course I don't expect to find out their 'real' avatar name, it would be useful to have an assurance of if, and how long, the human has been playing SL, so that they actually do have first hand knowledge of how things are, not necessarily how they or LL might want them to be.

Sure, on paper the figures may look like the $50,000 or whatever of transactions each day look impressive - but in context of the overall figures I would expect it to be a lot less impressive. Every time a land baron buys a region, I guess that's $1200 straight away bumped up on the daily figure, multiplied by however many they choose. To LL it's an instant profit, but to the land baron it's a loss to be recouped before profit is made.

I am quite convinced that we'd all think things were very different than they are portrayed if we were allowed access to the true figures and accounts of LL.

Lewis

That's just rude dude.

That's just rude dude.

Ah, so that's your shop then.

Actually, I'm selling off land in order to reduce my tier to 1/4 sim. I'd rather not, but unfortunately there's not enough granularity in tier levels for my partner and I to afford to keep the level of land that we'd actually prefer.

As to the land needed for a house or anything really, I'd have to say that I'd cound 1024m as a minimum.

I don't see it as rude in the slightest. Any expert on any given subject should be able to prove their qualifications when asked to do so. As there has been no introduction of this individual (I'm not even sure if it's male or female to be honest) or anything else to support their position if 'economic expert', I think it's quite a legitimate question to ask, especially as it seems quite possible that their recommendations could be turned into reality. Such sweeping statements as "we can live without stipends" I believe need to be proven without doubt - and right now I have seen no evidence to support that point of view.

If I said that in real life I was an expert in a particular subject, would you just accept my word for it, or would you ask what my qualifications were? I'm sure you'd like to know and not only what they were, but their relevance too.

I can speak French. The fact that I learnt it at school 20 years ago, and apart from 'which flavour icecreams do you have' and 'which way is the railway station', I can't remember much of it... doesn't disqualify me from saying I can speak French. The fact that I am crap at it, and my knowledge of it is next to useless (unless you want to buy an ice cream and walk to the nearest railway station, of course) is irrelevant.

Lewis

Just because it seems to be free, doesn't necessarily mean it's free.

How come you can get 'free coke refills' at your local fast food place? Oh my, they must be insane! It costs money! I bet they'll be bankrupt tomorrow!

My point: if the gains later realized from giving out 'free' money are more than the amount of free money handed out, it's profitable for Linden Labs.

If the basic account didn't have L$ 2000/month 'free', I would rather rent land, than own, and pay 25 USD or more of tier.

For most ppl in the world, owning a car is a luxury.

Only if a more mature SL doesn't include premium accounts. You pay for tier separately from your premium account, so if they kill premium stipends they will have to dump premium accounts completely and just have people pay for tier.

Well, sorry, it is.



To their employer, yes.



Yes there has.



Does it matter?



Yes there has.



No, it's not.
....



Well I can, So can others.



I've seen some, and it involves more than just numbers.

Lewis is buying Lindens. He's paying more for Lindens than he'd get on Lindex.

Calling someone who's paying more for his Lindens than YOU are a "freeloader" is ludicrous.

This is precisely why I stuck to Basic for so long. I'm checking out the premium side, see how it works, along with a bunch of other people who'd been basics for a long time. I'm still renting 6000 from Alliez Mysterio, but we've gotten together on about 4000 in 3 parcels on Noonkkot and are seeing how that works out.

So far it's OK, though we've had more annoying neighbor problems. I've found that invisiprims hide "red line" security barriers effectively, though it's a pity they hide trees as well...

No it doesn't matter if Vasudha is male or female, but as I haven't seen any 'proof of credentials' posted, perhaps you'd be kind enough to link me to them?

Thankyou for your assistance.

Lewis

Once again, they have no requirement to offer "proof of credentials" to anyone other than their employer in this context. They have publicly introduced themselves on the forum, they have stated their qualifications, do your own searches.

That is not what I read. I believe Vasuda's quote was directed at the economy, not at individuals or the continuing growth in short to long term players.

Stipends: BAD for L$ value but GOOD for getting new players hooked.

Ultimately the decision Linden Labs has to make is, which is better for them:

Stick to things that swell the player base or change things to preserve the L$ value.

It's their business decision to make. If it was mine... I'd stick with helping the population grow. The L$ might stabilize briefly without stipends but a stagnant or declining population will yield fewer L$ buyers. It might be artifiically pushed up for a while as people game the remaining money in circulation to their advantage ... but when the number of buyers drops because... ultimately the competition to sell will return and the value will fall.

--
A larger active population is better than a stable L$.

Especially as you're looking at it from LL's point of view. The Lindex turnover has tripled from about 2M L$ to 6M L$ and in the same time the rate changed from 250 to 300 (and I'm actually overdoing it with the 300).

Today: 6M L$ -> 20000 US$ -> 700US$ or 3.5% daily to LL
Before: 2M L$ -> 8000 US$ -> 280US$ or 3.5% daily to LL

If they'd kill of stipends and hence a lot of the incentive then they'd be seriously cutting in their own flesh.

Blakar, Blakar, Blakar:

The increase in volume on the LindenX couples with the deline of
the Linden Dollar says ont thing, "More People are Selling L$".
And if more people are selling L$ and the supply isn't running out
to keep new L$ from bein posted on the exchange, it would suggest
that alot more L$ exists in the economy.

Today: 6M L$ -> 20000 US$ -> 700US$ or 3.5% daily to LL (L$293)
Before: 2M L$ -> 8000 US$ -> 280US$ or 3.5% daily to LL (L$250-L$270)

If Prices Decline and Volume Increases, it means more people
are cashing out. If price declined and volume remained unchanged,
then it would suggest the decline is only held down with weak support.
A few buys jump in and the price would rise.. But currently with high volume
and declining prices, it says SLers are running for the doors and getting what
they can, while they can.

Actualy what she should ahve said is the Sl economy does not need stipends IF Linden labs would require a minimum wage on jobs and enforce same. The problem is they will not. This is merely more caterring to the haves while attempting to kill off the ahve nots. Vausdha, increasing the amount of jobs is not the answer. There are many times many more than what is listed in the SL classifieds. The issue is the employers saying they will pay then turning aruond and not only not doing so but taking money from thier employees as well. When you guys are ready to require wages for work, and enforce same then stopping stipends would work. However as it stands now you are talking about killing the only source of income for MOST of the players in second life witout a back up plan. You guys gotta stop caterring to these long timers who have basically done thier best to kill every new business adn cheat every enwbie they can into free labor for them. Or worse..taking the employee's money. That's an even worse set up than the south had during the slave years. Yeah folks I wanna pay someone to be slave labor..yeah right.LOL

Incase anybody was wondering:


L$293 = US$3.41 for 1000 Linden Dollars

down from last months valuation of:

L$272 = US$3.67 for 1000 Linden Dollars