If Stipends Are Ended, Boycott Lindex

Allow me give every economic genius on the board a pearl of knowledge....


Nothing is worth more than someone is willing to pay for it.

And this goes double for entertainment.




Those of you who believe that eliminating stipends will cause people to buy from Lindex at any price you care to set; you are wrong. The buyers will just hold out until the prices drop. If you don't believe me, look at what happens at Christmas time every year. Consumers know the stores stock up for Christmas and they need to move the merchandise before inventory in the beginning of the year. So they wait and wait until the prices drop. This is why you see mad crowds in the mall the week before Christmas, the prices are the lowest they will get.

People don't have to log into SL. Plenty on the net to do, plenty of RL places to spend money. Hell, if I wanted to wait you guys out, I can just go to the library (free!), the video store, the movies. the bookstores. I can turn on the TV, the radio. And that's just things I can do in my house. There are public parks, zoos, video game arcades, museums, amusement parks, et

And for those who really want to be in SL, we don't have to buy content in world either. We can deal with merchants with real currency in SLexchange and other sites. It's nice to be able to buy L$ and go to different shops in world, but we don't need to.

So you will join me in refusing to buy L$ if stipends are ended?

That's like saying don't buy gas from stations on a certain day to boycot gas prices. Someone somewhere will still always need gas. (especially if your online game's appartment rent is paid with "gas"

this is fine. as long as consumers buy L$ off the lindex from the same services and creators they spend their L$ on, the L$ acts as a proxy for USD. when players get all their necessary L$ from LL, the proxy currency fails.

it doesn't matter what the L$ is worth. what matters is that the stipend becomes irrelevant to the majority of consumers.

I will, though looking at the situation I can't teir down to basic for some time. More than me has teir in the group, and until all are settled it would inconvenience others.

I won't buy more than my normal 5 a month unless its over 500L/1USD, and I may not buy that 5 USD

This is ridiculous.

Get rid of stipends, what is the point in having a premium account? For that 512 m First Land that is surrounded by ugly builds and spinning FOR SALE cubes in the air...
I think I will pass on that and go back down to basic..

I will boycott lindex, I mean I never have needed to use it. All my stipends are used on luxuries I don't even need..and my sales support me just fine.

I guess i'm a page behind here, is there a post made by lindens that they are considering this or is it just a rumor on the forums?
If there is official word, can somebody link me to a post?

"Get rid of stipends, what is the point in having a premium account?"

To own land.

And most people are calling for the end of basic account stipends. Basic accounts are the majority on SL.

"So you will join me in refusing to buy L$ if stipends are ended?"

Oh boo hoo. You poor poor thing. Your life will be so terrible once an online game stops offering you free currency to spend. Nigerian children are weeping at the unfairness.

Musuko.

What I've seen is people trying tog et rid of premium stipend, not basic.

It's a case of a few people making baseless claims so often that someone started to belive 'em, with a big dose of folks working themselves into a lather over nothing.

The new "economy Linden" said that stipends were no longer nessesary to drive the economy - which is probably true, but is also not the same as saying the stipends are doomed.

I expect stipends to be messed with last, and a good long while from now. Even then not cut off entirely nor would the cut be deep or rapid - and won't go away entirely for quite a while, if ever. Folks are right - very right - when they say stipends are in large part how they view the value of thier SL time. Just yanking it from under folks feet would do irreperable damage.

If they do it smart, they'll do it so buying from the LindeX is more attractive than having a premium account. (Which it is right now, as I see it. It gives us the ability to pay or not pay for our SL time as we see fit and when we see fit.)

I know it seems a shade odd to make basic accounts more attractive than premiums, but in the end it's best for LL. Invested residents - "content creators" - working the smaller markets and filtering a good part of that up to LL in the form of tier and other fees is a potentially self-sustaining, low-cost way to get thier virtual world rolling.

So, stop worrying about what a few barkers are saying. They've got themselves stuck on the pure math part of the economy. There's more to it than that, and the smart ones know that. There's no need to get worked up over what is nothing more than unfounded roumor and the rants of a few self-styled experts painting a simplistic and innacurate picture of what is an economy based on interest over need.

Well put. I do think that it's pretty clear that LL is moving towards an entitlement-free economy at some point in the future, but I do agree with a whole lot of what you've said here. In addition, LL will most likely add more things to the premium package to make it stand out from the basic package. At least, it would make sense to add more while removing some.

I was thinking cut stippends, but also cut premiums to $5 a month from $10, so only $5 lets you own land, and the other $5 USD you can spend on buying $L you need/want. Then again, although that will increase the number of land owners, if that fixes inflation, that remaining $5 will get you less and less $L.

I can't find the post but I believe a Linden has said an entitlement free economy is the ultimate goal. However after Robin's exceptionally timed annoucement about selling Lindens I don't think LL being smart about the removal of stipends is a safe bet. At any rate regardless of any consideration for or against stipends I think in the long run they are doomed.

The point is to support LL with our money or the grid will be closed down for good soon. In my opinion, everyone should pay to play.

LindenLabs get the VAST majority of their income from people paying for land, and probably for trades on Lindex. Back in 2003 when I joined, SecondLife actually used to be a $15 a month to play game, like most other games today. For a while it used to be a $10 one time subscription fee, too. But as the economy progressed and developed, Lindens decided they could make a lot more money by opening up the game to everyone by allowing the population and economy to expand.

/130/95/108256/1.html

There is your link ...

...and as far as I can tell it is not written by ...



...or based on ....



But if it'll make you feel better, you can simply ignore the link. Apparently, it works for some...but I seriously doubt it will curtail the inevitable.

SL is not gas, SL is mostly entertainment. It's a platform for some, but most of the products in world (including mine) are strictly for entertainment. People do not need to buy prim hair, clothes, et to use SL as a platform.

Then don't rent. When I was a landless basic account, I used to change in sandboxes after rezzing a couple prims. I created there too. Plenty of empty spots in SL to meet your friends or to be alone.

Or just upgrade and buy a parcel.

But the point is that the people screaming for stipends to end are just doing that because they think that this will raise the L$. But it won't. If anything, it will make people reluctant to spend L$ and thus they won't buy L$. The Linden will plummet so fast that it makes a sonic boom as it falls.

But not the majority of stipend-production...

There is a difference, and simply saying that basics are the majority of accounts gives no consideration to the fact that premium stipends are the vast majority of the money pumped into SL on a weekly basis.


End basic stipends by all means... but consider just how little effect that will truely have...

Musuko,

Have you ever been to a casino?

What they do is give out some free poker chips or a free roll of quarters to get people to start playing blackjack or slots. Some people will stop playing once the freebie runs out, but the majority will lose a lot more than the freebie.

Stipend is to SL what those free chips and rolls of quarters are to casinos. They get things going. How many people start spending on Tue and find that they've spend over their stipends by Sat? I spend twice my stipend a week. But my stipend always starts me on a spending spree. Or an uploading spree.

As a seller, I want people to have those stipends. I want people to start spending thier money because they might spend a bit on my stuff. Once they don't have that freebie, they will start to think before they start spending, I know I would. And the economy will stifle because people are just thinking about spending.

It'll mean that anything of quality, value and uniqueness will slowly disappear, and all that will be left is the sex clubs, malls and that's about it.

Is that the best vision we can come up given more or less unlimited potential to create a new world?

Lewis

Could you grease that slope a bit more for me...?


Lewis, take it from a basic... the stipend is nothing. It's meaningless to what a new player can earn within days. (I was getting hundreds a day within a week when I started... what's L$50 a week compared to that?)

Seriously, what are you going to do with L$7 a day?

I have never rented, owned land, or even owned a paid account (aside from the OLDOLDOLD $15 a month to just play for a basic account), for the last three years that I have played the game. However, I am still affected by the economy quite a bit, since I do own a rather large amount of L$, and do on occasion have business transactions.

You want to have stuff that's not just sex clubs, malls, and "that's about it?" Many other people do as well. And they're willing to either spend stippends, or $L they buy on Lindex, for it. So I doubt any of that will ever dissapear.

Then you would be directly affected by a boycott of L$ buying.

Look at my casino analogy, without that stipend to get the in world buying started, why should anyone buy L$?

How is that possible for a clueless newbie? I know people who have been here months, years, who never make that amount of money on a regular basis. Sure, you might occasionally win Tringo, or a "Best ....." competition, but that doesn't happen every day.

Lewis

It's very possible... all it requires is a little thought and effort...Ah, the "some people can't do it so it must be impossible" argument... Do I have to explain just why that's a fallacy?
Lewis, certain things can help anyone make that amount of money... Freeslot events just for starters.
Treasure hunts, money orbs, camping... and for the clueless newbies, the money trees.

A few minutes thought and a little effort results in a healthy income...

Right.... but you completely invalidate that suggestion with:



None of those things you mention require *any* skill or thought, and are all part of the problem that has screwed the economy and made a joke of any way of measuring quality of anything in-world.

Now, without handouts, would you like to try again and explain how a newbie can make a 'reasonable income' within just a few days in world?

Lewis