A solution for the L$ problem

Dear Jonas (Super Troll).

Go back to your rules, nobody is listening to you.
Although you should have listen to my expert advice
back in Jan/Feb when I told you the L$ was going into
the toilet and on its way to L$300. And yet the often
flawed advice from Jones proclaimed L$275 was
the bottom and the L$ was moving higher.

It sure must be disappointing to have seen your
predictions squashed as I clitched my fist, bent my
elbow, and let out a "Yeah!" to my superior forsight,
which you lack. Time to listen Jones. It will benefit
your pocket book in the future.

Here is a Present for you:

Now that thats out of the way, we can look to the -rising- value of the Linden dollar, when you purchase lindens. Silly froggies think the sell price affects my pocket book. Current rise of value helps me keep more money -in- my wallet.

And he thought I had predictions LOL. Silly trolly. Quote me then.

Rules breaking ended until the troll can produce evidence of me predicting that the -sell- price of L would be easier on the seller.

Its a game economy..and I'm getting more bang for my buck.

The SL economy is seriously broken.
In the first nine months in SL, as a Basic user, I bought an average of US$30 per month on IGE and LindeX. Since becoming Premium that's gone up. But I'm not a common case: over 2/3 of premium users and over 9/10ths of Basic users don't buy Lindens at all.
DOn't let the door hit your butt on the way out.

In addition to our premium fees, me and my rl fiance shell out 5$ US a month on lindens. Just to enjoy ourselves. Including our teir fees, SL is STILL far cheaper than us doing that with any other online game.

Would you believe, the SL world doesn't see the economy
in the same light as your $5/mo spending spree... Many others
are dealing in Hundreds, Thousands, and Tens of Thousands of
dollars. So a penny change can have a major impact. Thus the
debate about issues which involve fixing the economy.
(i.e.: The L$30/million New Linden's Printed every Week for Stipends).

Um no. even at ten thousand dollars the penny impact would be about $100.00 bucks. Not significant at all. Also your economic analysis is of course is based on limited analysis, and looks only at lindens on the market without considering the mechanism by which lindens reaqch the market. Basically you offer a theory with no substantiating data, and your only argument has been "because I said." Its all nice to wrap yourself up in a economic sounding name and pontificate at large on your economic theories, but really ask yourself "what right do I have to a stable linden?" And point specifically to me in the TOS or your user agreement where it states that you have a right to make money, and you have a right to have the linden at a particular value.

I can show you quite clearly where it says I am entiteld by contract to a stipend.

No, what he's saying is that the stipend is the only source of income for most SL players, therefore if it disappears, no one will buy anything because they can't -- they'll be broke.

There are three main ways to get Lindens right now:

a) Earn them in-game by selling or renting goods or services.
b) Buy them off the Lindex.
c) Be given them.

The majority of players right now use only method c). Key point: there is no reason to believe that a significant fraction of these players will begin using a) or b) if c) were to diminish or disappear. It is more likely they will instead either stop buying things (and just use SL as a chat room) or quit SL entirely. Either way, they drop out of the economy. The number of remaining economically-active players may very well fall below the critical mass needed to sustain the economy or even SL itself, regardless of how stable the exchange rate becomes. Thus you see much opposition to the simplistic approach of merely reducing or eliminating stipends as a way of stabilizing the exchange rate.

(Notice that the idea of whether the exchange rate should be stabilized, and, if so, at what level, are issues in and of themselves, which I have not addressed.)

Its a game economy. I don't cash out. guess which end of the spectrum I care about fixing?

Come on people lets get it to 1000L per us dollar put in!

This is JUST FINE by me. The more L$ someone can purchase for $1.00 on LindeX, the LESS useful LL subsidies will be as far as actual spending power goes. I believe it is important for residents to eventually begin offering a better rate for L$ than the rate offered by LL (L$361 per US dollar put in).

Guess who cares about your "Its a game economy" views? Nobody...
The rest of us do cash out to keep from watching out investments and
profits from vaporizing.

Shaun, thanks for the support! I will defend my paid for stipend with my (virtual) life. Doesn't mean I will care -how much- that 500 a week buys. Its guaranteed by contractual agreement, but its value isn't.


I'm on a quarterly plan so I'm not sure 361/1 is the ratio my stipend is on..but it really doesn't matter

I will stand by you and defend it as well! I like my L$500 stipend(s) too. I use them to buy content in-world, as I feel that they (currently) give me a bit more bang for the buck than money I earn. Besides, I like to cash out what I earn and spend it on other things.

And no, you're not getting quite the best rate possible on the quarterly plan. You should consider an annual plan after this quarter ends, so that you will get as much L$ as possible for your money.

This is all very well put. I would point out that sometimes that penny can turn into 10 pennies, or 50 pennies though. Sometimes that one penny really does make the difference too.

I perticularly like this question:



First of all, I think that it is very important to never give known alt accounts any credit WHATSOEVER. Anyone with any true convictions would be brave enough to stand behind them by posting with their main/real account.

Second, regarding the question itself, it is important that the community accept that they have no right to a perticular exchange rate. The right of the community to a perticular rate, or a perticular inflation picture in-world to combat a bad rate, can ONLY be assured by the community taking collective RESPONSIBILITY for those figures. Those who are unwilling to own this responsibility and work towards economic prosperity shouldn't expect Linden Lab to implement a "big red button" that they can press to solve all of their profitibility problems! I know that Second Life is somewhat of a dream world, but expecting LL to somehow "dictate" the value of a commodity is quite a streach of the imagination.

Regarding my choice of plan, I currently am on the quarterly because it was the best balance of value per month and total upfront. When my next subscription comes up I will have the free funds to get myself annual, and get my fiance annual the next month.

It's a GAME, and if people like you would actually play the game for fun, instead of worrying about "investments and profits" then we'd all be a lot better off for it.

What people like you fail to realise is that the exchange rate goes where the market takes it. Why is it so wrong for the L$ to rise to L$400/$1 yet perfectly acceptable to you if it falls to L$200/$1?

Unfortunately until LL promote the game properly, and stop the lies about making tens of thousands of dollars a year, SL will never grow effectively. You do realise that the whole game is just a glorified pyramid scheme, with the big players making more money, and the average player loses out and gives up as they see all the big names making lots of money for little effort, against all their effort for little reward?

Lewis

Lewis... please scoot up to the top of the screen, and click the "Developers" link. That will tell you, clearly, in black and white (well, blue and white), what the designers intend SL to be. I'll quote a couple of lines from that page here, just to save you a bit of clicking:

Second Life is a 3D platform for developers who want to present, promote, and sell their content and applications to a broad online audience within an immersive, shared space.
...
Second Life provides our expanding developer community with ownership of anything it builds or creates in Second Life. It is yours to sell, trade or monetize within the rapidly increasing population of Second Life Residents.

Now, we all know you desperately want SL to be less than this; to just be a game, with zero commercial content. But it isn't, and was never intended to be. It's like you went to a fruit shop, and bought a banana. Then you started complaining, because you want your banana to taste of oranges. The majority of us are quite happy with our bananas how they are, thanks very much... and we'll have none of your citrus-inspired nonsense here!



LL recently *doubled* their userbase in HOW many months? I wish my company expanded its reach as "ineffectively" as LL currently does...

I'll take the lIndens word that tis a platform when Havok 2 come sout on time. Ooops too late.

Its a game to me, let it be to you what it is to you.

Maybe I'll go post some lindens at 400L for a dollar..

get it a bit closer to my target price

Wrong.

When there were 100,000 accounts we saw around 4,000 logged in at peak time.

Working on that growth, 200,000 accounts should mean we get peaks of around 8,000 players online, correct?

I haven't seen anywhere near that peak - and right now, we have 2,961 people logged in. About normal, and most of those are free accounts camping.

What you really mean is the amount of alts and either played once and quit, or never even logged in, doubled during that period.

When we see regular amounts on the front page of 8000+ simultaneous users, then your argument may hold some weight. Until then, it's about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

I don't understand why SL being "just a game" is somehow derogatory. It would certainly be more entertaining than "just a cash cow". The capitalists don't realise the damage they are doing to SL by just concentrating on making money rather than creating quality entertainment for others.

So... what do you do in SL? What's your point for being here?

Lewis

I don't know about the rest of you premium account holders, but my weekly Linden expeditures (uploads, classifieds, etc.) far exceed my weekly $500L stipend at a rate of > 2:1. I'd like to see some statistics on the average number of Linden dollars taken out of circulation, each month, for these "taxation" events.

Microsoft intended ActiveX to be a Java-killer and a way to lock the web in to Internet Explorer and Windows. What they created was the #1 virus distribution tool ever made.

What a company intends to create and what they create are two different things.
SL is a game that contains a development platform. The only reason that stuff you make is worth so much money is because people want to play with it.

It's not "just a game", no, but it is a game, and that shouldn't make it "less than it is". Games are a much bigger market than corporate training or whatever other serious stuff LL thinks they're selling to the investors. They shouldn't play down the game aspect. Hell, you should be demanding they promote it to your customers instead of your competitors.

Argent is correct. LL should not play down the game aspect of SL. However, the business opportunities that the SL platform offer should not be played down either.

Business is also a game and a war combined. Companies who create computer games are in business playing their own game against their competitors.

I think we all need to realize that the word game can be interpreted by different people in different ways and in SL all interpretations are valid. (For the record, Argent, I do understand that you realize that as well.)

Companies such as mine are interested in the SL platform (or some version of it) to do more than corporate training. We're just testing the waters right now to learn what's possible. Part of that process entails participating in the SL economy in its current condition to see how goods and services are effectively exchanged. It is also a thrilling opportunity to let our creative talents add value to the SL community--assuming, of course, that the community thinks they add value


<b>Concerning the depreciating L$</b>
As far as the issue of the depreciating L$, it will remain an issue to those who are playing the game of business, who are risking large investment sums to win their profits.

Free-market economies are based on supply and demand. Supply is fundamentally based on raw resources. Both of these are regulated to offer a modicum of stability to an economy.

In SL, the fact that those playing the game of business operate "in world" with L$ but then must cash out to US$ to have RW profits is the real issue. Lindens are not directly tradable on the RW foreign currency exchanges. They must first be converted to one currency (via an unregulated exchange) before they can be traded to the next.

To those of us who are interested in SL as a platform for new business opportunities, it is important that the "rules" of the economy offer acceptable return for our risks.

Indeed, but don't forget that while some resources in SL are at an increasing cost in Lindens, others are at zero cost. For example, the marginal production cost of almost everything except land itself is zero, so you have so much more freedom to pick your selling price because it doesn't cost you any more to sell 100 widgets for L$100 each then 10 widgets for L$1000 each.

And anything else you sell, including rental land and services, you're perfectly free to charge US$. For example, the land I rent is paid in L$ but I pay a US$ rate.

So the strength of the Linden should have less effect on your income than you think. People are capable of mentally translating L$1000 to US$4 or US$3.30 or US$3 and buying accordingly, and if you want to sell for US$5.00 you can charge L$1250 or L$1500. Or you can keep your price at L$1250 and see if people buy more because the Linden is so cheap! you may actually make more money, total, that way.

Very good points, Argent!

Even though L$ inflation is an issue, I do find it funny that most SL business residents who are worried about inflation do not raise their prices. That's what happens in the RW. In the RW it is more complicated than this of course, but where the SL economy is right now, price increases should suffice for most small SL businesses.

However, since land is theoretically infinite in supply, it could be easy for someone to buy a large number of new sims and instantly glut the market (more than it is now) with cheaper land. So, for land owners, raising prices is a more tenuous solution.

I won't raise my prices becuase of false inflation. Hell, I'm working on viable alternatives to the more expensive items, to offer at lower prices. As the prices of others rise, mine become more attractive.

I think Linden do themselves no favours at all by describing SL as a "platform". "Platform" is a fairly abstract buzzword that's pretty meaningless to most people.

Personally, I describe SL as neither "game" nor "platform". To me, it's simply a "place".



Since you ask, I do a bunch of stuff. I hang out with friends - there's a couple of good rl friends I regularly hook up with in SL who, due to geographical constraints, are difficult for me to meet up with in the real world as often as I'd like. Somehow it's nicer to hang out with them in avatar form than it is to "speak" through other internet channels. Beyond that, I've forged friendships with people that I've only "met" in SL. So I guess, in that context, SL is somewhere I go to socialise.

I also make stuff. Clothing, prefabs, a few scripted gadgets. Some of them are just made for my own amusement.... but others are made - unashamedly - with commercial interests in mind. Those items that I sell are popular enough for me to make a steady income, and for me to make a hobby job out of some of my SL time. So, in that respect, SL is my part-time workplace too

I wouldn't really describe either of those things as a "game" activity (trust me, I've worked in mmorpg development... I know a game when I see one!)... though I do get an immense amount of enjoyment out of both pursuits.



So what about the capitalists who are making money BY creating quality entertainment for others? My own feeling is that they're in the majority. I mean, I'm yet to meet folks who habitually hand over sacks of cash in return for stuff that sucks....