Effect of new Economic Policy on L$ Value

LL has recently decided to begin selling L$ on LindeX. How do you feel that this announcement, and the action itself, will effect the value of L$, and why?

I personally think the short term result will be the $L being devalued, but the long term result will be a rise in $L until they sell more than US$10,000 worth of $L. I don't think that is enough to counterbalance the loss of premium accounts that may occur with the lower stipend, and I think it is low with a 20% decrease in stipends in the first place. There will be more residents in the economy even if there are less premium accounts.

Who cares? Sl stopped being fun when Linden started listenning to the fattest one percent of account holders anyway.

Thats life, isn't it? The Richest 1% command 90% of the wealth. As such, Linden Labs will listen and adjust to the people who pay the bills, not the free loaders who burn up bandwidth, CPU time, support assistance, etc and contribute zero dollars to their pocket.

It should be all about the fun.
Fun is what drives SL.

Hmmm....

Lewis Nerd: Resident, payment information on file, premium account holder with 4096 land monthly land tier.

ReserveBank Division: Resident, no payment information on file, basic account holder, no monthly fee and no land tier.

Who's the freeloader?

Lewis

Fun drives SL and Money allows it to exist. With no vehicle, you won't be driving anything.

Also as we discovered yesterday when my cousin went premium, it is possible to be premium and have ones payment status continue to say "payment information on file" and not "payment information used".

How to do this?
Make about 25k L$ in game selling content.
Sell the L$ on Lindex.
go premium

Payment status does not change since you never touched the CC backing your account!

o im driving around just fine. tell me, what do u contribute 2 the world?

Oh, nooooo, of course they will never sell more than US$10,000 on LindeX... Offff course not... neeever.

I KNEW there was a good argument against free accounts

You forget, I'm hoping they do sell more on the Lindex. I'm hoping they get rid of the stipend altogether, and sell millions of $L on the market. It will be better for the economy to have the economy controlable instead of guessing how many premium accounts will be made. I've always stated from the beginning, that I think it over-complicates things to have an account connect land and $L at the same time.

What would really help things is if they raised the initial amount of money they give out to new accounts to help new players decide to stay, making up for the loss of stipends, and they should apply the same system that limits us to five accounts to limit people from getting this initial balance more than once.

In the end, I'm fully confident that Linden Labs will not sell so many $L that the value goes down the tubes. They are a company, and they want to profit. The measly profit they would get by selling $L till they become worthless would be a horrible buisness decision with so much time and money invested into making SL a long term money making machine. Linden Labs has a reason to be worried about the economy as much as everyone else. You can trust in their greed if you can't trust in anything else.

So there is no majority, at least on the FORUM, which feels that L$ will decline in value, as a result of emotions associated with these changes, or as a result of the changes themselves. This poll, while not in any way conclusive, may be good news!

This statement is just false, on several different levels.

L$ will become less valuable! 1546.88%

What?

It was around 45% when I posted. I expect people to show up and game the poll shortly though.

I'm inclined to agree. I've also seen Lindens mention they are looking at separating the stipend from premium entirely and replacing that with things like making it so people can automatically buy Lindens on a set time schedule with a set budget (like say on the first of the month buy $10 worth of lindens). With that solution if you're only premium for the stipend it would make sence to stay basic.

I could see them easily going to no premium account at all. Just take that premium money and auto-buy lindens. Want to own land? No prob. Just pay teir.

As long as they don't sell too much too often, and people don't freak out and dump their lindens this might be a good thing in the long run. However, the potential for complete and utter craptasticness is extremely likely too.

What do I plan to do? Nothing. I want to see what will happen because at this point it's anybody's guess and there's too many variables (including the highly unpredictable human emotion factor).

Eh, it's a wash.

If they would let people pay their tier in Lindens, that would help, but of course there is no incentive for them to do such a thing.

The best thing they could do for the value of the Linden is to encourage people to create ongoing activities (rather than one-hour events that only involve 20 or 30 people at best) that would give people something interesting to DO so that they don't try a free membership and disappear after a couple of weeks.

Ah ok

ZOMG RBD PWNED BY LN!

The L will become less valuable due to the announcement as it will likely cause panic sales. And dark having the economy being more controlable is not necessarily good. Considering without the stipends you force people into buying L. Your under the assumption that people are just going to buy L just because they are forced into it and very likely they wont. Another thing is it makes premium accounts non appealing and if its just based off tier payments many people wont get involved with tier at all.

I can put this in like this SL - stipend = LL losing potential premium accounts, Newer players get no real introduction to the economy, you squash development by forcing people to buy L anytime they want to start doing something and if they are creative and dont have the money to buy L well they are pretty much screwed over. There are to many reasons why the stipend is helpful and most of the people that are overly worried about the L stabalizing really dont care about SL and i think they forget that they were new or didnt work at one point in SL.

I think the only way you will see is if it happens and your business falls to pieces due to it. See how much of a profit you make when no one really has L to spend on your products.

Well short term it appears the answer is very little effect... we're still at around 300±5 which is my ball park for the last month.

Longer term, I just don't know. My instinct lies with Lina et al. As stipends decrease people become less willing to spend money. The ONLY way this will be countered is if LL changes the culture of the residents:

New residents tend to see SL as free, then find they've got to spend money to get money... and they're not happy. It's not a very reliable statistic, but that was the expression of 9 out of 10 (or maybe it was 8 of 9) people I was talking to on HI yesterday. If that is changed people will start to buy on Lindex with no problem, no approbrium then RDB will be laughing on the other side of his face as the L$ strengthens against the US$.

OR

Old residents start making jobs (which requires more money or more value in the first place as well as a lot of changes to make employing people attractive) so the new residents get the money and so on. This might make RDB laugh on the other side of his face too, as the supply of L$ to the LindeX declines as people cash out less

I know of a small number of people that employ people in SL. Anshe obviously, June Dion at Bare Rose does for newbies I believe, there are dancers, escorts and security and a few others. But so many of the jobs in SL require skills - scripting, texturing, building etc. that the older residents can either do themselves, or they have their ring of contacts for people that can do it for them... It's possible to break into that ring of course, but not as a total newbie in most fields (texturing for things other than clothes being the probable exception).

Of course the new crop of residents will have their own culture, their own ideas and so on... Predicting if they will start to be willing to buy on LindeX regularly is beyond my skills I'm afraid.

If neither changes happens... Well who knows - I'd have thought the LindeX will stay stable for a while, because if nothing happens to change the way it's used, there won't be a big change in it's value IF and only if the direct sales are as small as currently indicated - even with the double counting it's less than 2% of the volume per month after all.

Well, they are destroying themselves. Since LL has done it (and, as expected, 1uping on the best deals made on linden X made by ACTUAL RESIDENTS), they make all the money, while the average joe shmoe who wants to earn a little cash if ass raped.


ie.

The average guy (Joe Shmoe) who wants to make some money to offset some of his OVER PRICED PIXEL FEES of 40USDs a month wants to sell some Lz in lindenX. He offers 7000 lindens, at 300L$/USD.

-Without Lindens on LindenX (how ironic)- Joe Moe Shmoe the Second goes on linden X looking for some cash, he sees the best offer, he buys Joe Shmoe's money. Guy balances fees and life goes on, thus fueling the economy of SL.

-With Lindens on LindenX- Lindens magically make 10K lindens appear and make it 500L$/USD on their offer. Joe moe smoe the second goes on linden X looking for some cash, he sees the best offer, he buys the linden's money.
Joe shmoe is up shit's creek, butt raped, whatever you kids call it these days.
Linden goes home happy feeling he made money for his/her company but ultimately destroying the very fabric of his/her VERY OWN SECONDLIFE!

First stupid Lindens, Then stupid Linden Updates, Now STUPID LINDENS WITH THEIR UPDATES ON LINDEN X! Whats next.... oh I think you all know whats next... *SL goes byby for good*



You forget who we're dealing with, I mean come on its LINDEN LABS we're talkin' about!

You forget who we're dealing with, I mean come on its LINDEN LABS we're talkin' about!

I am so glad you are not going to let reality get in the way of your views of how horrible LL is. When you say things like "and, as expected, 1uping on the best deals made on linden X made by ACTUAL RESIDENTS" you are implying that LL is already selling on the exchange. They are not. They have said they won't until July 24 or later. Also why would LL be so stupid as to sell the L$ the create at more the market value? Have you not seen the all the open buy orders that at 316, 317 or more? If LL really did sell at 500l/usd don't you think there would be many, many people that would jump on the chance to buy that L cheap and then sell it to someone else? Your reasoning is so far fetched it is not even funny. SL is the life blood of LL. Why would LL knowningly destroy themselves? I do trust LL. I have not always thought they were going into the correct direction, but in the end they do seem to be right more then they are wrong.