From: ReserveBank Division
Unless that business holds a monopoly over something you want.
No. If you only want it, you can do without it. It'd be a dull time, but I COULD cut myself out of SL entirely, and so could anyone here who spends more in SL than they make.
Actually, so could anyone who earns a net profit, if they could make a larger profit at another task.
Now, if I owned title to all the cereals in a city-state... Everyone needs to eat. :>
From: Cheyenne Marquez
Oh, I did only answer half the question, didn't I?
But as far as who will prop up the L$?... the answer is the same.
Linden Lab.
They simply have to continue tweaking the economy with the economic tools available to them in order to realize a desired result.
I could go on and on in regard to the various sinks, tiered taxing possibilities, and e-commerce ideas that LL could implement to prop up the L$ if, and/or when, that time became necessary. Many of those sinks, taxing, and e-commerce ideas have been mentioned numerous times on these forums. And many more could be devised with a bit of thought and creativity.
Suffice it to say, the balancing of an economy is a never ending edeavor.
One tool that LL has, is the continued devaluation of the prim.
You probably play SL on a fairly decent machine, but that machine, (assuming I can go by clock speed here,) would have qualified as a supercomputer just a couple short decades ago. Whereas a car purchased in the 70's, and properly maintained, can still reach highway speeds, a computer purchased in the 90's can't get up to speed on the on ramp to SL.
In two years, by "moores' law", the complexity possible on a single IC, will be twice what it is today. At fixed prices, that generally means that a computer at least twice as good as the one you have now will be available for about the same price in a couple years.
Why does this matter? In two years, the computers purchased to maintain the new sims will be likely twice as capable of juggling all the prims. LL can parlay this advantage one of two ways. They can up the prim limit for the same price, (assuming they upgrade the whole server farm, really,) or they can charge the same price as they have been, but it costs them less to do so. Say by selling two sims, but hosting them on a single machine. (Or three sims hosted on two machines, somewhere between now and July 2008.)
They can already count on the customer to keep up with incrementally better hardware.
They can also make available more client-side goodies...like flexible prims and better lighting. This costs THEM nothing in hardware, although a fair bit in programming, and still attracts customers.
From: Musuko Massiel
"That explains why everybody in the UK either drives one of those small ass cars, a moped, or a motorcycle."
My motorcycle gets 100 miles to the gallon. 100. One zero zero.
There's a good reason why having high petrol prices to discourage huge innefficient cars is a good idea in Britain: we're a country of 60 million people living on an island one thirtieth the size of the United states.
We have 244.69 people per square km compared to America's 29.77 per square km (
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/geo_pop_den-geography-population-density/AFR), so it stands to reason we don't clog up our roads with giant tanks like Americans do!
Musuko.
but....but....How can I feel all Manly, (on my Big Mac/Whopper and Bladderbuster soda,...and cooresponding waist size >= inseam,) without my hummer?
Seriously, it's a status symbol. It doesn't have to make sense. The chicks just have to dig it, or you have to think they do.
And being able to waste..\r\r\r\r\r\r\r\r spend more money than the other guy is a symbol of status.
P.S. For the record, my inseam is 7 inches longer than my waistline, and I intend to keep it there.
P.P.S. It's MOORES' law, not Clarkes. We're dealing with improvements of hardware, not technology indistinguishable from magic...(well that too.) Corrected above.