Prediction: Classified prices force increase in basic stipend

Due to the insane prices people are posting on the classifieds (5000/week? Come on now...), a lot of money is being sucked out of the economy.

While I applaud the Lindens for coming up with a very effective money sink, eventually it's going to put a very strong deflationary pressure on the $L.

Therefore, in an effort to balance this economy out, the Lindens will be forced to tinker with the formula of basic stipends, either increasing it a set amount, or using a formula based on how much money was sucked out because of Classifieds to give people a variable amount each week.

ETA: 6 months or less

Well, they could just sell less land for L$.

We're seeing about 250 / ad for 500 ads, that $125,000 per week - which they've been selling in terms of land.

I also think in a couple of weeks the average bid rates are going to drop significantly.

That'll be cool ; more (perceived) money in people's pocket. They'll be happier.

Counter-prediction: People will do less crazy-priced buying of ads once they figure out it's not a terribly effective method of advertizing.

Like real-world classifieds, it appears people use them mostly when they're looking for something in particular. This means the position of your ad is a tad less important overall and your use of keywords is going to have a greater impact on the effectiveness of your ad.

The one spot that's going to get fought over in the pricing wars is the single top slot becasue it's loaded when the user opens the classifieds. - and I don't think there is enough folks with the nessesary wealth to fight for it to put that kind of dent in the money supply.

Time will tell, of course

Don't you think there will be competition for the last spot too? Some people sort in reverse, especially if they're looking for a place they haven't seen before.

I can even imagine a bunch of furniture sellers bidding 54, a bunch of menswear sellers bidding 53, a bunch of prefab sellers bidding 52, a bunch of vehicle sellers bidding 55, and so on. Wouldn't that be nice?

Yesterday: People browsed telehub shops, businesses paid rent to telehub land owners
Today: People browse classifieds, businesses pay rent to Linden Lab

There is always one winner and one looser. It is frustrating when you are the looser and the government is the winner.

Maybe that money could be used to bribe people into visit the former telehub areas. How about install some games there and pay out L$ to the winners?

Clearly Linden Lab is encouraging the use of camping chairs because it is so beneficial to have a couple hundred zombies sucking down bandwidth for no benefit at all.

Just to pound a point home that the zombiemeisters keep missing, if you have an avatar camp at your place for 6 minutes and go nowehere else that day, you win all their dwell for that day. In other words, you are paying your zombies 240 times more than their presence warrants and lagging your real customers in the process. In RL, this would be akin to packing your "Mall of Junk" with paid extras to give it the appearance of being popular while losing money to the extras and irritating the junk buyers who have to trip all over your extras. Bloody brilliant.

What does that have to do with classifieds and their impact on stipends?

Or, it will cause inflationary pressure as sellers raise prices in order to finance their advertising. This will likely drive more basic account holders to purchase currency for use in SL.

Right.. but that'll probably strengthen the L$ against the USD.

I dunno - as a shoppe owner and avid consumer of other people stuffsszzz-

My first look at the bidded ADs - my impression was rofl - sooo they can afford to pay 5k for an ad ? They certainly do not need my L$. So I went down looking for the lower priced ads.

Kinda, like flaunting your wealth.

Now, I know people will say - "But, but companys pay millions for superbowl ad time.... in RL"

Well, this is not real life and the ability to pay more for a higher placed ad only makes me laugh and that you paid more than 50 when my sort is now lowest to highest. My ad at 250 is there only because it is one of the many 'leftovers'

There's one small kink in your armor.

The majority of people who participate in the classifieds own businesses.

The overwhelming majority of people who own businesses, do not need or rely on stipends.

On the other hand, a better barometer of whether stipends should be raised or further cut is the Lindex.

We are nowhere near stabilizing the linden at the $L250/$1.00 level desired by LL.

Supply is overwhelming demand.

Meaning there are still way too many linden in the economy.

If anything, not only do stipends need to be cut further but dwell incentives may need to be reduced as well.

You'll want to get that looked at, Lordfly. Leads to chafing.

Their customers do.




Disagreed. With classified ads looking to be topping out at 6000/week for the top spot, with the rest of the ads being between 2000-1000, there's going to be a lot of money spent jockeying for position. All this money is vanishing from the economy. It's a big vacuum cleaner for the money supply.

lf, those bids will come down next week.

It's not that much money, and I don't see much happening to the L$ at the moment.

Huh?

Customers are not paying the 6000/week for the ad.



I fail to see the correlation between stipends and the classifieds.

Who's fault is it if a particular person wants to spend 6000 a week for a classified ad?

I would hope that people who are spending on the classifieds, are doing so intelligently and only with money they have alloted for advertising expenditures. Business have varying advertising budgets. These budgets are, or atleast should be, formulated according their business income.

In short, this service is not forced on anyone. It is a luxury, and contrary to what some may believe, not necessary?

Bottom line...

If you cant afford the ad price, dont pay it.

Once again, I direct your attention to the LindeX. The exchange rate continues to dip. It is a more accurate indicator of the overall health of the SL economy.

Im not an economy guru by any stretch of the imagination, but i don't ever recall hearing or reading about how a nations individual businesses advertising expenditures have ever been used to adjust a nations economy, or used as a barometer to gauge its overall financial health.

heh i've tried doing an ad for 550/wk vs the normal 125 (for some reason it seems that the average price has doubled: people are now paying 250/wk baseline even though it used to be 250/2wks).

so far the advantage and jump in sales has been:

1) jack
2) sh*t

So I still don' tthink people buy based on who is listed 'OMGFIRST'!

people search, and go to where they want to buy.

Indeed, the places that pop up first are merely decorative, preparation for the real search to follow.

without looking at any numbers on this (do we know total classifieds outstanding in any given week?), don't think I agree with your prognosis LF

I think it's a small dent in the total money supply, and I also think that the median spend on classified ads will stay pretty low

but numbers would be interesting if the data is available

Except that lindens are worthless to Linden Lab, at least directly. They don't get to sell the lindens like you get to do.

If it is shown to be an effective money sink, and that in turn helps keep the linden stable against the USD, it's going to benefit far more people than were benefiting from telehub land.

Besides the Classifieds being a cocked-up mess.... Advertising costs are passed on to the customer. Think about that when you see the $L1000 ad.

Lordfly meant their customers rely on stipend...

I think the median ad price will end up being very close to 50 a week personally. I don't think there is much reason to post for more than 50 linden in the end. A good description and image with plenty of accurate keywords is going to be worth so much more than being at the top of the search list.

This is evidenced by the fact that when i use clasifieds, it's through a keyword search. When would i ever be bored enough to actually browse the classifieds?

I know it's only $50L/wk but i couldn't resist posting a spurious good luck number for the helluvit. Why not?