L$ Gains Strength Again L$326 / $1 USD 6-9-06

After a modest fall on Tuesday, the L$ is posed to gain strength even further.

See you @ L$250 / 1 USD by the end of the year.

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Daily Summary:
Last Close Date 2006-06-07
Best buying rate: L$326 / US$1.00
Best selling rate: L$344 / US$1.00
Last trade: L$326 / US$1.00
Last close: L$330 / US$1.00
Change: -L$4 / US$1.00
Today's volume: L$139,636
Today's open: L$326 / US$1.00
Today's high: L$326 / US$1.00
Today's low: L$326 / US$1.00
Today's average: L$326.0000 / US$1.00



I couldn't help myself but the point is the L has stablized around this range the past few days. Hurray!!!

Yep, all the time whilst 99.999999999% of the active playerbase continue to receive and appreciate their stipends, thus showing that it was never the problem.

Lewis

Good point.

"Yep, all the time whilst 99.999999999% of the active playerbase continue to receive and appreciate their stipends, thus showing that it was never the problem."

Since that change the playerbase has grown, but the number of people receiving stipends has not. The percentage of the active playerbase getting stipends has fallen.

Musuko.

Musuko - just curious - do you 'see' the Quote button on your screen? Or are you using some obscure browser for which this graphical element does not appear? It would be HELPFUL TO THE REST OF US, if you would kindly use it. Because - look - I've quoted you, but someone else's words are mixed in with yours....because they weren't quoted....

As to the subject:

The Linden has stabilized at the rate at which people who receive stipends are willing to sell them, the same rate that they can buy them for (with a Premium account!!).

This should come as no surprise.

Stipends are not the problem. In fact, there isn't a problem, and never really was. People were just willing to buy L$ for an expensive rate before because they needed them to buy land. Now that the land rush is over....we have a more reasonable exchange rate.

Those were my words quoted in case you hadn't found them.



The only problem is the people who can't see beyond their own bank balance, to understand that it's that weekly pittance that makes the difference between doing what they do, or cutting back.

To quote the late great Tony Hancock, from his famous radio play "The Blood Donor": "that drop of blood may be just a smear to you, but to some poor soul it's the difference between life and death".

Lewis

I imagine there are a lot of players out there having fun, oblivious to this whole debate. They are casual players who don't have a job in SL. If they make stuff, they make it for friends or for fun. They pay for their premium account so they can have a little land and an allowance.

If stipends go away, odds are a lot of players like this either go away or start playing a lot less, and that would hurt everyone. If LL kills stipends, they will be strangling their own baby.

"Musuko - just curious - do you 'see' the Quote button on your screen? Or are you using some obscure browser for which this graphical element does not appear? It would be HELPFUL TO THE REST OF US, if you would kindly use it. Because - look - I've quoted you, but someone else's words are mixed in with yours....because they weren't quoted...."

I don't use the quote system as, in my opinion, it is lazy and leads to people quoting entire lengthy posts rather than the relevant portions, which is NOT easier to read. If you had taken the time to copy-paste out my words from my post (as I do every time I quote), rather than just quote my whole post verbatim, you wouldn't have that problem.

Two points to make:

1: if you find text quoted in " " hard to read, heaven forfend you read an actual book.
2: if you don't recognise the quote, chances are it isn't quoted from you and you needn't worry too greatly about the identity of the poster. You need only know what it says.

"Stipends are not the problem. In fact, there isn't a problem, and never really was. People were just willing to buy L$ for an expensive rate before because they needed them to buy land. Now that the land rush is over....we have a more reasonable exchange rate."

The exchange rate isn't the issue; the rate of exchange rate change IS. It doesn't matter what the $/L$ rate is as long as it remains relatively stable. But it hasn't, which is why people are calling for changes (such as cutting sources like stipends) to try and curb the rapid inflation.

"If stipends go away, odds are a lot of players like this either go away or start playing a lot less, and that would hurt everyone. If LL kills stipends, they will be strangling their own baby."

On the one hand, you say there are players out there "having fun", making things for friends without profit, paying premium account fees for land, not caring about money. Then, on the other hand, you say people will leave in droves if they don't get their free money.

Which is it?

Musuko.

There is a difference between not caring about getting rich and not caring about money. If you take away this player's allowance, you discourage them. Now they are faced with a problem. They either have to work hard at SL or buy lindens every single time they want to buy something. I'm guessing a lot will leave, and that would be a shame.

I would think a lot people like this are perfectly fine buying lindens every once in a while when they really need it, when the product or land is really worth it, but take away their stipend, they will tier down, stop shopping and spend their free time somewhere else.

And it's not free money. They paid for it. I paid for it. It's not free. It's not welfare. If anything it's an annuity that we bought.

A fall from L$250 -> L$336 then a subsequent dead-cat bounce to L$326 does not a rally make.

We're still in downward spiral mode.

See you @ L$500 / 1 usd by end of year. (unless the Linden Federal Deficits are corrected)

What you fail to remember is that the 'magical' L$2501 figure that you quote is an arbitary figure set at the introduction of the exchange system, in order to make things convenient to calculate. There is nothing anywhere you can quote that can say that figure is where it is meant to be - and the free market that you so vocally protect is what is allowing the figure to go where the market wants it to go. You want to fix at L$250? Then that's not a free market any more.

Markets go up and down all the time. It's a fact of life. The US$ is losing value against the UK£ still, http://www.xe.com/ states $1.844 : £1.00 right now, your money is worth almost half of mine, and when I come over on my holidays to the US I can enjoy spending and having a good time because my money goes further. When you come here, your money goes nowhere. In time, the gap may change - but it's certainly not something you as an individual can do anything about.

The problem with capitalists is that they only want things a certain way when they work in their favour. When it works the other way... the sky is falling, even though it's working exactly the way it is meant to.

Lewis

"If you take away this player's allowance, you discourage them."

And if you devalue the currency with allowances, you discourage content-providers, which in turn creates a lacklustre game experience, which discourages the players.

From my own personal experience, it was having to give credit card details for a free acount that deterred me for a long while. Better to have players able to get on SL without the confidence leap to give CC details, then have them decide if they want to purchase money, than have CC details required (which you would require if you are giving basic stipends, to stop people farming basics).

"And it's not free money. They paid for it. I paid for it. It's not free. It's not welfare. If anything it's an annuity that we bought."

We're talking about basic stipends here, not premium stipends.

"I'm guessing a lot will leave, and that would be a shame."

People who don't think SL is good enough to buy a few lindens (so obviously they don't value it much) or who don't want to put in the time to learn how to earn lindens (and therefore enrich the game with extra content in the process) would be a great loss to us all if they leave?

You are talking about people who look at something nice and think "I would really like that, but I don't want to make the small sacrifices needed for me to obtain it". How are those people valued members of any community?

Musuko.

Just for the record since they eliminated stipends from basic accounts there have been over 5,000 new accounts added in the last two days.

...and they come with L$ too I have noticed a trend of people coming into SL with L$ (bought). Very cool!

-2fast

Children, alts, griefers and perverts, I dont see the big deal.

If you read my posts, you would have seen that I'm clearly talking about premium members with land who are invested in SL, and most likely occasionally buy lindens from Lindex. It would be a negative for SL if we lost a lot of these people over (premium) stipends getting yanked.

Even perverts need the occastional prim penis. So it's all good

A sudden one hour drop to the rate of 336 is not a crash either.

We're not in a downward spiral anymore. Things are flattening out.

Thats what you said when the L$ was stuck around L$275... Look where
we are today, L$330... Just a pause before the downward spiral
continues.

In case you missed it, the L$ is falling L$10-20/per month. on average.

Where did you get 330 from? It's 325 at this hour barely and when it was 330, it was one little sell order with nothing behind it except 327/1.

It's only Friday, we'll see perhaps lower 320s portions of this weekend if things go well. I just don't see it getting worse anymore except for some spikes like it did on Tuesday morning hitting 336, in which "OMG the sky is falling" posts started to hit the forums.

Yes I do predict it will hit 300 by the fall and at that time I will sell. I also predict you'll still want all stipends to end and will scream anytime the value falls. You can tell me how wrong I am if it isn't and I won't care. It's funny because anytime it falls a few points, you'll say "see its falling again, OMG." Yet anytime it gains strength, "oh no its just a deadcat bounce."

One of the main reasons it is at 325 is because of at least two badly timed events by LL. One is the announcement of selling Lindens by Linden Labs.

Oh and since the 24th of May when the average went to 330/1, its been around there so I would say it is flat or even getting a bit better.

Hasn't anyone noticed that once someone posts about how good things are going, suddenly a handful of people dump large amounts of L$ on the market?

L$326 / US$1.00 3 L$542,547


L$325 / US$1.00 6 L$1,841,011

Just something I've been noticing that I thought was interesting, seems to happen every time

I think you should check out a few threads in the General Forums before you start celebrating. I think the sudden jump in residents is through the creation of alts. Lots and lots of alts. I mean a sh!tload of alts. And the noobs with money, they are probably alts bankrolled by the original avatar.

I'm looking at the actual number logged in, and it seems low for a Friday night.

That's a lot of ALTS

Some of that I don't know how much was pulled up from 315.

Content providers always have the option of raising their prices.

coco