Linden Lab is Destroying the Economy

I agree with adding sinks. Raise the cost substantially for uploads of all types. Creators will then feel justified in raising their prices substantially. $L will go back to LL instead of to Lindex or SLexchange. Also put a limit on the amount of times something can be sold without re-upping the texture or recreating or paying some sort of fee.

BTW Wayfinder your rates haven't gone up. Your RL profits have gone down. There's a difference.

I've heard this suggestion before. If I may, all this does is yet once again put the burden solely on the content developers and merchants rather than leveling the responsibility system-wide. Yes, it is a sink that will help... but it's far from fair. And it's not going to help much if LL continues to flood the market with millions of L$ every week.

Everytime someone talks about sinks, the first thing they look at is sticking it to the merchants and landhodlers once again... who are the ones primarily paying for the system already so that others can pay for free. So I really have to disagree with this as a solution. Landholders are already doing their part by having dwell cut (we still put out the same amount of work... but now we don't get dwell for doing so). So please, no more suggestions aimed solely at the developers. It's time for others to give a little.

I propose sinks that apply to everyone, not just merchants. The landholders have already been hit (as well as anyone renting from them as rental prices increase proportionately)-- now it's someone elses' turn. It certainly makes sense that the primary step to stop the glut of L$ is stop giving millions of free L$ to non-paying members. That will eliminate a flood of millions of L$ every week. I can't see how that is so difficult a concept to envision. There may be other steps necessary in addition; we would have to wait and see. But that should likely be the first one. Additional sinks can come after that-- if needed.

Pardon? Sorry, ya didn't quote, so I didn't get the context or what you were replying to. Did a page search on "rates" and couldn't find an original reference. 'Splain?

I agree. The sinks hit creators and the like disproportionately hard (especially texture uploads), and increasing the current ones would exacerbate this. Any new sinks should be more widespread. The thing is, if the sinks are hitting everyone, unless it's being exchanged for a valuable service, it reduces your buying power in a similar fashion to a stipend reduction. And if it's being exchanged for a service you currently get for free or pay less for, then it's not that much of a better option.

Well, in reality you're right. Because bottom line what is largely responsible for L$ devaluation is the fact that the L50 stipend is being paid to merchants (thus an increase in sales by millions each week) who then turn around and sell them on LindeX (standard business).

So yes... the sales might decrease... but then the value of the L$ would increase to compensate. And at least merchants wouldn't be hit up-front every time they upload a texture (thus causing a great deal of disgruntlement every time they press that L$25 button. And frankly, if I had to pay L25 every time I uploaded a texture, I'd have to switch to "essential uploads only" mode-- as would a lot of others, I think. L10 I can handle; L25 gets expensive fast).

But I have a theory in regard to sales too: I think that once the freebie L50 stippend is stopped... people will suddenly discover they magically have a little disposable income after all and will start actually buying L$ instead... thus improving the seller market... which is what is needed.

sorry it was from your original post:



but looking at it again i think i didn't read it well the first time because now i can see you are referring to the prices of your products. But anyway what I *thought* you meant was that your rates of doing business have gone up. Which isn't exactly true if that was what you meant. Your rates haven't gone up, but your USD profits have gone down. Your $L profits have remained static actually.

And now that I look at that a little more, I think it begs the question of whether or not that's just tough luck. I mean, people went into business in SL on a gamble. You knew there were stipends and no sinks when you started your business. You didn't know about Lindex but there was GOM before that. The Limit Buy is a new thing which of course is brining the value of the $L down even more but still, conditions have changed in your favor (by which I mean bonuses, dwell, and now basic stipends) have all been ended to try to stabilize the economy and to appease you folks selling lindens for USD.

But why? You were never promised a stable economy. I've gone over the TOS very carefully and no where does it promise a stable economy. I've gone over the rules and reread the agreement of what you get for a premium account, land, etc, and no where does it promise you a stable economy. It DOES however, promise premium accounts a stipend.

In any case I think if you need to raise your prices for your goods you should. As folks said to me when we were forced to close the spa, the market will choose whether or not it wishes to support events. Well the market will now choose whether or not it wishes to support businesses. Why should you guys be special?

I disagree. Because the merchants are the ones making money off other residents so they are able to recoup their upload costs. Add to that that once you have paid to upload the textures and whatnot, and once you put the whatever on sale, you can sell that item forever without having to pay anymore.

For example, it costs 10L to upload a texture. Lets say you want to make a shirt. Lets say, for the sake of argument, that it takes you 30 uploads to get it right. I have no idea if that's a reasonable amount or not -- my take on things is that 30 is way more than it would take most people. So you spend 300L to make the shirt. You price the shirt at 50L.

It only takes you six purchases to recoup your costs. Then there's the cost of your rental so for the sake of argument we'll say that you sell nothing but this one shirt and you rent a space for it and that space costs you 300L a month. So you need to sell 12 shirts in your first month and 6 thereafter. If you make a second shirt, then you only need to sell 6 of them to totally recoup your costs becuase your rent is being paid by the first shirt. And so on and so forth.

If your uploading costs are increased, then you'll increase the price of your shirts. Either the market will bear the costs, or it won't. Which is what everyone wants right? Free market? No interferrence? So the market is doing what it will do. Either handholding is good -- for everyone -- or it is not. You can't have it both ways. You can't say you want a free market in the case of dwell going away but you want LL interferrence when the market makes trading inconvenient.

Furhtermore the sinks need to be at the merchant level as they are the ones ultimately turning the stipends into USD. So I get my weekly stipend and I go out and spend it on clothing or hair or skins or something appearnace based like that. The merchant turns around and takes that money and... does s/he spend it? Probably not. Most of the creators I know wear/use their own stuff -- not other peoples. If they do use other creator's -- they've traded for it. So the stipends end up in the hands of the creators who then turn it into USD -- destabilizing the economy since its a one way flow -- from Linden to the non-creator residents to the creators. No wonder the value is going down. Lindex is not the problem -- the creators are.

Or they may decide that SL isn't worth it and uninstall the software from their computers without staying long enough to discover whether or not they like it enough to buy L$

The people who like SL enough to buy L$ will buy it even with 50L$ a week or $500L$ coming in. The ones who won't buy, won't buy. You can kick and scream and hold your breath til you're blue in the face but they won't buy.

But the group who will buy L$ will not buy them if they uninstall SL before they decide that they like it enough to buy L$.

I don't think that's a realistic premise. It's just not going to happen, is it?

No... "luck" has nothing to do with it. What has something to do with it is Linden Lab claiming this is an "economy" based system where people can "earn real money"check all the publicity ads)... then flooding the market with L$, setting up an unregulated exchange and driving the market into the dirt.

That has nothing to do with "tough luck". That has to do with poor management.

No business is guaranteed to be successful, nor to return a certain rate on investment. But at least it helps to not have your supplier working against your best interests.