What do you think about basic stipends?

Keep all stipends at thier current value. Make it a violation of the TOS to cash out to anyone but Linden Labs. Ergo you sell on e-bay you can get baned adn lose your holdings. Linden sets a fixed rate fo exchange for the casahing out. then like any business does they charge a profit and make it part of the TOS that you can only buy L's from Linden Labs. There end of problem, the economy is now fixed. However this wno't stop the idiots who insist that all L's should be bught fomr then and stipends killed from whining, however they make up less than one half of one percent of the in world population. Personally I think it's a complete error to allow pruchase or sale outside of world for real cash anyway.

Not sure why there's fixation about stipends of basic members in particular.

A premium member receives L$ 500 every week. This money is printed out of thin air and injected into economy exactly like basic stipends, but at 10x faster rate (500 = 10x 50) ... now, while the premium members pay for their account, their payment comes down to $6 a month with annual payment plan.

So, a premium member is generating L$ 2.000 a month out of thin air, and it's to them worth $6 they paid for it. Meaning, as long as they can then sell this money for more than they spent on getting it, they're actually generating personal profit, on top of getting all the advantages of premium account membership.

L$ 2000/$ 6.00, less 3.5% transaction fee ... this comes down to ~L$ 321/$ 1.00 ... it means as long as someone is selling less than that 320 L$ per 1 u.s. dollar, they're actually making (tiny) profit off their game account without having to do anything at all. Let alone actually investing anything into it. And you keep wondering what on earth makes people sell their virtual money for as 'low' as 300/1 payout. Especially when you add potential extra L$800 from additional 4 basic accounts, which all together raise the point of profit generation to L$ 450/$ 1.00

(for members with quarterly payment plan the point of profit shifts to ~275/1 with no alts, and ~360/1 with alts, respectively)

of course, the basic members may also sell their stipends and they don't have the point past which it stops being profitable... but note 1 premium account member still injects the money into economy 10-14x faster depending if they use alts or not.

You're pretty much complaining about the stain on carpet left by pink elephant in the dininig room, while doing the hardest to ignore presence of elephant itself...


Also, as sidenote. While generation of money can be considered harmful, it can be also viewed as Linden's investment in their world -- at least part of this money is being spend to cover costs of uploading textures and other kinds of content creation, which enriches the game world and consequently its value, on the whole (as more varied world attracts more potential visitors/customers)

"We had to destroy the economy in order to save it!"

Having been both a basic and a premium account holder at one time or another, my take on concern over a "devaluating $L against the $US is simple... that concern is only important to those who are trying to make money. Whether that money is intended to cover tier, increase tier, or take and spend in the real world or not simply doesn't matter.

I happen to use the stipend primarily to cover upload costs. At this point in my SL experience, I can make or trade services/products for most of what I want Being concerned about making money in and from SL isn't worth the effort or aggravation. When I am in SL, I am in SL to play... if I sell a product or two, that's a few more uploads this week. That's all it is to me.

The stipend for basic account holders is not a problem as far as I can see. Where anyone gets their $L to pay for something I sell is meanignless to me - it seems to concern only those who try to conduct business in trading $L from one resident to another via the medium of USD. So, I could care less what others want to think about my stipend or anyone else's, whether basic or premium.