Two questions on stipends

No i can afford to pay my tier without looking to L > USD for it. I know i can pay it with my real life money. I dont rely on making 60 USD worth of L a month because i dont want to get into a situation where i need that 60 usd worth of L a month to pay my tier otherwise shutting down my account because i could afford that tier payment if that L didnt come in. I dont force myself to sell L at a lower rate so i can sell it faster to cover my tier payment with an L > USD trade off.

What im suggestings isnt that people shouldnt have land but rather they should be able to afford that land with real life funds on a monthly basis as opposed to relying soley on their L > USD trade off to pay all tier payments. If you set your tier for a full sim you should be able to afford that with or without the L > USD. Making it so you soley rely on the L > USD thing creates a time restriction on you.

For instance say my tier was 1000 usd a month. Now my way i should be able to afford that regardless and thats how i'd do it. The way most people are doing it if they cant afford something like that and alot dont want to put their real life funding directly into that are relying on making L and selling that L. Now come the end of the month me im not worried because i know i can afford it and if i have some L to sell i can put it in at a rate i want it to sell at and wait for it to sell. Now the other person on the other hand who got in over his head has to frantically sell the L off to cover his tier and has to do so within the time limit of when his bill is due.

This forces him to sell his L at a lower rate so he can sell it fast enough to cover his tier. Now in my situation I didnt effect any value on LindEx in fact i'd of kept it at that days rate. In the other guys situation he lowered the value of L and depending how much L was put up 1000 usd worth in this case it's going to take awhile to sell thus forcing the people that wanna sell faster to undercut him if they wanna sell to. This creates a viscious cycle which only causes the value of L to drop faster then it would if it was simply just the supply vs demand or a buy / seller count.

There are alot of factors causing the L to drop but the sellers relying on that L monthly to cover a tier they could otherwise not afford in RL are a problem for the exact reasons i said. That is why its important to make sure you can cover your tier with real life funds first and then get the L > USD as a nice thing. Its got nothing to do with the amount of sellers. There could be 2 and this would still happen because one would want to sell faster then the other. I wont say that the stipends arnt part of the equation but getting rid of them isnt the answer.

However the devaluling of the L could be slowed if people practiced what i said. Not saying people shouldnt be able to have land just saying if they cant afford it with real life funds first mabye they should rethink it if they are going to scream about the risk they took that didnt pan out later. Getting rid of the stipends isnt the answer however they are a bit of the equation no matter how we look at it.

I'll agree with you that mabye a cut is better Rasah. But what we get should mabye be a 5 usd credit to our acconts intstead of a stipend at all? This gives us the choice to either leave that there to help go towards payment LL loses no real money this way. Or we can buy some L off LindEx. Mabye keep the lowered traffic payments to keep a steady flow of L into the economy. Also mabye bring back the cell phone or credit card needed for basics allow them mabye 2 months or so of the basic stipend ( about 400L ) and then let them go off on their own there (400L gives them a taste of some money - lets them get some freebies and mabye a decent outfit or lets them start to get into the creative process)

Easy solution isnt it. While it does take out some L the problem is that what most people are screaming for wont be fixed. This trend will continue unless the sellers decide to actually do something and change how they act and thats a sad truth.

But if I lose my job, I cut back on my expenses. If some aspect of my expenses goes up, like gas, I cut back on that too. And not by boycotting gas on certain days; I drive a fuel efficient car, I drive less. No unnecessary driving has been my motto for awhile now.

In RL, if a company that owns a chain of stores cannot afford to keep a store or two open because they are losing money, they close their stores.

In SL, if you cannot afford your tier, you sell the land and tier down.

As i pointed out already what rasah said was living beyond my needs not my means =P. He even brought up the word things not neccessary to live. Simply put Rasah i have the money to pay for that stuff regardless if a paycheck comes in or not. I was wise in saving and knew what i was doing. I live perfectly within my means.

These people dont opt to tier down if things dont go their way however they just toss linden's on the lindex at a lower value to help pay that. Thats their fault no one elses. It's not a buyer vs seller debate at that point and it has nothing to do with volume at that point either. It has to do sheerly with a time restriction for tier payment that they themselves create by going into it without being able to afford it with real life funds.

Yes in real life if you lose your job you cut back and everything this person i quoted said is very true. The problem Rasah is alot of people are living beyond their real life pay inside SL. Now the thing here is if i have 210 dollars i can spend on tier a month do i spend my 210 a month then make a business in world that can pull in 420 a month. Now do i then go buy 210 more dollars worth of tier or do i continue making payments im sure i can make?

I was never saying people shouldnt be able to own land Rasah. Just was saying they shouldnt own so much that they cant afford to pay it in real life first without cutting into their Living Neccessities, be that housing or whatever. If they can use an income in SL to help pay for it great, but the key here is that they should NOT be relying on that income from SL to make said payments monthly.

What im saying is someone shouldnt get in a situation where they need to do this to get by on tier payments. Wether you realize it or not the time restrictions these people place on themselves by creating this situation for themselves is detrimental to the entire economy.

What if all the gas in your country suddenly starts costing $5 per galon more than it is now? Or worse, what if every gas station, not being able to survive any more in the economic situation of your country, closed up shop, and the only ones still running are ones who have some leftover gas they charge a fortune for, or gas stations ran by altruistic arab princes? What if the housing parket went haywire and all mortgages and rent fees suddenly increased by about $300 a month? Or what if the money you're getting paid by your job suddenly starts to get refused in stores, or all the merchants in your country suddenly require you to pay a lot more of it for the same things you used to buy, but your job is still paying you the same amount because they're still working on adjusting the payrol? What if this keeps hapening every once in a while a few times a year? How many times do you expect to cut back, and which business, specifically, would you complain to then?

And yes, people can cut back on their tier. But should everyone who relies on $L sales have to? (by everyone, I'm saying this isn't a business problem. Again, NOT a business problem. An economy problem)

Ok, aside from what I said about "living beyond one's means on SL," including mentioning that technically, if your $L sales cover it, it's well within your means, and if people did what you are proposing, the only large land owners and sim owners woud be the "money barons" or RL worlds who not only have a crapload of money, but are willing to throw away about $200 a month on a game (I thought you guys hated the haves/money barons/rich snobby types?)

How do you propose that SecondLife enforces people to only buy the land that their RL jobs can afford? And wouldn't it severely stifle the economy of SL if all the $L they make in game they keep, not needing to give it out to others through Lindex sales, thus starting to hoard large quantities of $L?

Yes, but I'm prepared to bet that your method of complaint wouldn't involve lobbying the government to close down welfare programs for poor people.

Now, of course, in RL those people need to buy food, which doesn't apply in SL; but in SL those people need to be retained, which doesn't apply in RL.

Um, I'm all for welfare (except the huge corporation subsidy type, especially farming corporations that didn't need welfare for over the last 50 years now). I WOULD lobby the government to do something about gas prices, yes, and in the case of money devaluation, would lobby the government to either stop printing so much new money, or stop borrowing so much money from other governments (like USA is doing right now), depending on what's causing the problem.

In RL people need to be retained in a sence that their money should still be able to pay for their food and shelter, otherwise they die out. In SL the money should be able to pay for land and content (read "your entertainment", otherwise SL gets too dull and they leave. As for stippends changing, or staying the same, that's irrelevant. As I said, either stippends will get lowered, meaning people have less buying power, and some leave, or stippends remain, but their value gets lowered, meaning people have less buying power, meaning they leave. A year ago, a $500 stippend could buy you two $1US items ($250L per $1US). This year a stippend can buy you just one $1US item ($330L), and leave with with a little bit of pocket change. The only difference in all of this stippend debate is whether new premium accounts should have less buying power now, which will hopefully stabilize things for content creators, or later, which will likely make some creators either lieve or close up shop.

Unfortunately, it happens that in the case of SL, when you demand that the government stops printing new money, you're also demanding they cut off welfare because that's where the printed money goes.



It's not irrelevant. The cost of virtual-freebie boxes (L$1) or uploads (L$10) doesn't change with the value of the L$ and these things can be very important to stipend recipients. Also, most people do not change their prices, and I know a fair number of people have issues with VendeX and are just avoiding it, so that hasn't been a major issue recently.

Also, don't forget - if the buying power of customers goes down, for whatever reason, they'll buy less and someone will get less money. Presumably you don't want that someone to be you, but in that case it will be someone else.



Again I still don't see why a content creator who couldn't make their tier wouldn't just go down to basic, get free hosting for a magic box, and continue selling all the stuff they had already created in the past on SLEx or SLB for no cost and pure profit. Ie, SL doesn't lose any content and the creator carries on earning money. There would seem to be no reason not to do that other than some odd feeling of spite that's so strong they're prepared to give up money for it.

I do agree with some of the stuff you mention there. It IS an extremely complicated issue, and a lot of real world $US loss is involved with this. Essentially, though, this entire argument boils down to semantics, opinions, and guesses on both prty's parts. However, since $L seems to have stabilized, more or less, I don't suppose this debate really matters, either. At least not until $L drops again, or starts rising way too fast (at which point I'll probably be saying that LL should print MORE money).

Actually this statement kinda is falsafied in a manner. You say its well within their means. Im talking about within their means before hand. If they can put some L towards the tier payments great but what im saying wouldnt hurt that. Its just a way so they may sure that they actually have the money to pay for it on a monthly basis. Within their means only applies in this case if they sell that L in time and for the right value etc.

The problem is that being said making the L$ sales within their means technically put my theory in more of a perspective (thanks for the help lol). To make the L$ sales to be within their means they have to have the L sale and be there in their account or whatever to pay the tier in the right "time restriction". You actually ended up proving my point here crazy as it sounds. But in that time restriction if the L does not sell then no the tier payment isnt within their "means".

If and only if that L sales is it within their means and to sell that L they often put it in at a lower value to sell it faster. The thing is its got nothing to do with volume at that point its got to do with the fact that they need that L$ sale to pay their tier and if they dont get that sale they are pretty much screwed. Also I'll point out to you Rasah. Most of the people im talking about are the people blowing god knows what on tier and things of the sort, anshe etc etc etc.

If someone can pay their tier with L great but it shouldnt kill them if they cant is what im saying. They created a situation that forces their hand to lower the L value regardless of volume, buyers, or whatever.. What im getting at is this. Say i got 500 dollars in r/l for clothing, now say i got some type of risk income every month that may or may not come in equaling to about 2000 dollars in that income. Now do i spend my 500 dollars and know im safe or do i blow 2500 dollars using credit and then find out that i didnt get that 2000 dollars ? Do i then after i blow the money that i dont have go to my government and whine because i spent more then an unstable income would allow?

You see the problem with saying that its all fine and dandy that people pay all their tier with L is simply what i pointed out. If they cant sell that L every month they are screwed. I'm just stating that its part of the devaluling of the money. Im just putting it out there for people to see and let them know to mabye use common sense when making a land purchash. Ask yourself the honest question am i going to be able to afford this without and L sale or will i need to sell L. If the answer is you need to sell L to pay it rethink it is all im saying.

Dont go beyond your means just because you think you may pull in a profit because you cause and adverse economic slip for everyone by creating a time restriction on yourself. What im saying rasah is rather then these people having to rush to sell their L they can actually take time if they can afford to pay the tier regardless of the L sale or not. The rushing is causing the L to devalue faster then it really should be. If they take time to sell their L they can sell it at a higher value instead of relying on it to sell to pay off something. While L > usd is great and all those that rely on it cause this situation.

Is the people rushing to sell their $L, and not being able to do it in time (lack of buyers), the cause of the $L dropping?

Or

Is the $L dropping (economy/lack of buyers) the cause of people rushing to sell their $L, and not being able to do it in time?

Sellers causing $L to drop? Or $L dropping causing sellers to rush to sell?


On the other note, when I started playing this game, I didn't have the means to afford land. Now with my $L income I can easilly afford it (just don't have a need to right now). I started playing within my means, and now my means include the $L I earn that I can afford to buy land with. If the economy stays stable as it is now, I will be well within my means to own that land. If the economy starts to decline again, despite playing well within my means before, I will find that I will have to tier down. Drop in $L value/income just means people will have to tier down more and more as they loose more and more money, and just means fewer people will be able to expand and make SL grow, that's all.

By the way, if you don't mind me asking, where are you from? Or more specifically, what's your 1st language? (I'm guessing it's probably not russian since you actually use "a" and "the," but I'm curious.)

Well im originally from Tokyo, Japan but i currently reside near New York. And my point is that its part of the equation you dont quite understand the full context of what im trying to say and its kinda hard to point it out without actually talking with you where we can go back and forth live =P. Mabye i could better explain it in world to you if you wanna im me sometime hehe. It's easy to understand but its hard to explain =P.

Yeah i dont like speaking weird really =/. I'll talk like that in an instant message but on the forums? Forget about that really. Its just so blahsay to do it. If I'm going to argue a point im going to do it using full words. Not u ur etc. Freaking damned ebonics lol.

First, your comparison to RL is false simply because everyone can log off of SL, uninstall the software, and call it a day. You cannot do this with the real world. This is the market you have chosen, deal with it.

Second, if you are relying on selling your L$ at a certain price to meet expenses then you are over extended and need to drop tier. Your L$ intake should exceed the amount you need to sell to meet tier by at least 75%. That way, if the price drops, you can make tier comfortably. If the price rises or even holds steady, you can profit/reinvest.

Third, this is risky. You have a double business model. You have to sell for L$ in SL, then you have to take those L$ that you've earned and sell them for USD. You are selling entertainment and your competition doesn't come from stipends, it comes from Blockbuster, Time Warner cable, bookstores, and many other entertainment venues around the world.

Instead of demanding that LL force people onto the Lindex, why not try to think of ways to lure them there?