L$ 299.86 / Us$ 1.00

What?

The last line is wonderfully accurate - except one needs to read the "you" and "your" correctly.

Sure, there are a number of alts of existing people. There are also a large number of genuinely new residents coming into existance. Over the last month SL has been on television or in major magazines in Australia, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, UK. There has been an enormous influx of brand new residents from those countries following that, to the point that all three Help Islands are constantly up and running and flooded with people. Some number of those are alts there to grief, but the vast majority of folks are genuinely new.

Since you've suddenly taken back to quoting this three year "decline", (whilst ignoring the fact that SL's economy has grown like mad, economic policies have changed out of all recognition etc.) I went and did a little research. Your numbers show a 30% change in the value from best to now. Over the same 3 year period, the variation between the US$ and £sterling (with far less changes to population, internal economic processes etc.) show a ... 30% variation.

Wake up and smell the smoke... You have predicted, at every level of the L$ that "it's going to decline". Over the next 3 years it may, or it may rise, or it may stay stable. No-one is likely to be able to predict that - for better established markets the analysts only tend to give a likely 3 month projection after all. But you have to explain why it's remained, with small blips, close to 300 mark for the last 30+ days, and why it returned to that mark after a big blip between 90 and 30 days ago. Dead cat bounce just doesn't cut it, they're characterised by a bounce back and then quickly afterwards a continued fall. In fact, with a 15% variation limit, it looks pretty much like the LindeX has been trading at around the $300 mark for it's whole life.

lol *saw SL on Beyond Tomorrow in Australia... See? It worked! xD*

Well, The more new users there are wanting to buy L$ the lower the amount of L$ you'll get per US$. The thing is that say User A is a L$ seller, User B is a buyer. User C & D Signup.

Now. User A has L$2000. User B wants L$1000 and Users C & D want L$750 each. That, my friend is supply and demand, demand is higher than supply (2500:2000, or 5:4) and so the price goes up.

Put your money where your mouth is and load up on Linden Dollars... Fill your pockets with this eCurrency. Because as long as Linden Labs keep printing more and more dollars, the L$ will crash.

Do you grasp the concept that valuation requires buyers using US Dollars? At L$300, a buyer is required to pay $3.33 for 1000 Linden Dollars. When Linden Labs creates L$50/million new dollars, that means you need an influx of $166,500 in exchange for the New currency just to keep the valuation at L$300.

So if the valuation of the L$ is dependent on "new" members, what happens when new MMORPGs, boredom with SL, etc cause declines in population growth or increased inactivity in existing accounts? You will see a reduction in demand for L$. And this problem is magnified because SL is a 100% Consumer/Tourist Economy. LL has done nothing to create the ability to Invest in the goods/services of SL, locking in monetary valuation (ie: Stock Market/Commodities/etc). That coupled with a growing float of Linden Dollars creates a bigger and heavier pig to support a sustained and/or increasing valuation of the Linden Dollar.

Everything you say would be true if Linden Labs stopped printing new money. Butg as long as the printing machine keeps cranking, the Linden Dollar will never sustain an increased valuation. Just look to Zimbabwe as an example when you keep printing money.

Why ? Those of us who do something more constructive than buying and selling currency to earn in Second Life are selling our Lindens on the Lindex not buying more. I don't hear any complaints about the difficulty of selling them either since the value seems to have stabilised.




I think we do, and there are buyers who are buying L$ with USD. If they weren't the exchange rate wouldn't be where it is at the moment. Why do you keep trying to tell us otherwise ?



What does this have to do with Second Life or its economic policy ? You're simply stating a problem that exists with any MMOROG with a limited life span. Your point then ?



And if we believe your previous point what will this achieve ? These things will serve no useful purpose in a MMORPG with no residents nor will they encourage new users, which LL is clearly doing at the moment without your suggestions.



They are decreasing the amount printed, and contrary to your falsehoods regarding the number of new residents and their need for L$, the money supply seems to be working well with the observed growth of SL and stabilisation of the exchange rate.

No one can argue with you on your one and only correct point regarding the inflationary nature of printing too much money, one hardly needs to be an economic genius to understand that - but nothing you say when you try and apply it to the economy of SL makes any sense, being either illogical or based on falsehoods.

So you think new things will take people away from SL? How about no. I play GaiaOnline and SL at the same time, some people I know play up to 5 online games at the same time.

Also, this game is different from many others. You can actually earn real money by playing it. That factor will keep people here, plus the fact that there are basically unlimited things to do. As more scripters make more new scripts the number of things to do keeps growing. As new businesses open, the number of places to visit keeps growing.

You can't say people will get bored with SecondLife, I know many people who have played this game for 1yr+ and plan to keep playing it for another few years. It's addictive for all ages.

And yes, people do keep buying L$ with us$, I myself just bought US$15 worth of L$ to give my business a kick-start...

You seem to be assuming that all that money will go nowhere except straight onto Lindex... and you've been assuming that all along.
That is 2 months ago... if your assumption is correct, then the amount for sale today should equal over $400,000 today...

Ever get the idea that you don't know what the hell you're talking about RBD? Your core assumption of where that money is going is spectacularly wrong!

You would only be right in your "argument" IF people were selling all that money... which they aren't, and the statistics show that very very clearly.


:edit: Something else the statistics show very clearly... the float waiting to be sold is going down, while the amount of US$ being spent is going up. This is the opposite of what RBD is screeching about.

Jeepers Xerius, when did you become a currency mogul?

Surely most of us (other than merchants and the odd Casino op that makes money) don't deal in enough $L to make that much difference to worry about the difference.

RDB, the trouble I have with your statements is just how contradictory they are.

You talk about crashes, tanking, dead cat bounces - but the evidence suggests that they're not happening, and they're all short term effects or names for short term phenomena, so no appealing that "3 years ago it was better" since most of your posts have been of the "sell right now" variety, not think what will happen in a year's time.

Go back and read my post properly - I've said there's no way I'm willing to guess where the L$ will be in another 3 years. I should add to the mix "non existent" I suppose, since it's possible that SL will have curled up and died - if the growth patterns for SL showed the pattern of MMORPGs I'd be almost certain of it, but they don't, so I'm not certain, just acknowledging it's a possibility I'd missed out earlier.

So yes - sometime down the road it's eminently possible SL will close and the L$ will tank as soon as it's announced. But even that isn't a function of the economy, it's a function of SL disappearing, having its inevitable impact on all functions. If all these posts are meant to be saying "All things pass, SL too shall pass" then why are you so convinced it's going to go now?

Trotting out Zimbabwe as an example won't help. There's lots and lots of weird things happening there, like no trade in/out, next to no food production industry because it's been destroyed, exiling the wealthy, persecuting anyone that works and so forth. Yes, their economy is messed up - but the rest of their circumstances bear no resemblance to SL's circumstances.

The onus is still on you to show why, short term, the L$ is going to fall. Your RL economic models say the L$ should be spiralling out of control in the short term. I understand what you're saying and why. BUT the evidence of the exchange rates is against you. If models consistently fail it isn't the hard data that are wrong, it's the model.

RBD's statements are entirely consistent if you factor in the 'variable' of his personal market cycles and when HE is trying to buy and sell, aka when he wants to sell he will tell other people the market is ripe to buy, and when he is trying to buy, he will tell people its OMG the end of the world

You got me all figured out... Want to be my Vice President of Floor Trading?

Just to give this a slight nudge...

Currently, there's been over 200K unique log-ins in the last 60 days... that's over 200K accounts active in that time. Given that there's just over 300K total accounts, and that those of former players are not counted in the 60 figure, either there are a hell of a lot of alts floating around, or there are a lot of unique sign-ups... which fits the reports from LL.

So, larger population made up of former players and alts? No likely... just how ignorant are you of simple facts?


Now, I once worked out for you that there were about 140K players in one WEEK... but time has passed since then, so lets do the maths again...

L$13M on tuesday was added... using the standard 1:10 prem-basic ratio, as stated by LL before... and assuming 500 per premium, we get 12k premium and 120K basic members last week... but, we need to take into account all the non-stipend receiving basics. We know that the unique log-ins figure is now 23K higher than the previous tuesday, and we know that a lot of the non-receivers play more than just one week... so we have a minimum of 145K players last week... and that figure WILL be higher.

The weekly population is increasing... especially since I see a lot of post 6/6/6 players with payment unused or no payment flags in their profiles showing up again and again. (I host slingo... I see a LOT of people)

So... the facts show it's increasing, people in-world say it's increasing... but poor RBD thinks it isn't.


Meanwhile, would RBD like to respond to the post showing him wrong on where all this extra money is going? (hint, it isn't flooding onto the Lindex... where he claims it's going to go)

Is that a jesture of love?