Make US$ by having a premium account

Is it good that the first premium accounts makes people money? Note that alt accounts will not make this amount of money since they have to pay US$9.95 as a one time fee.

Monthly

+L$2000 (month worth of stipend)
+L$1250 (intitial balance)
+L$1536 - L$3072 (current range of value for first land)
-L$512 (cost of first land)
-------------
L$4274 - $L5810

at US$3.00/L$1000 exchange rate = US$12.82 - US$17.43
at US$3.50/L$1000 exchange rate = US$14.96 - US$20.34
at US$4.00/L$1000 exchange rate = US$17.10 - US$23.24

Cost of account = US$9.95
Profit in 1 month = US$2.87 - US$13.29

Yearly

+L$26000 (year worth of stipend)
+L$1250 (intitial balance)
+L$1536 - L$3072 (current range of values for first land)
-L$512 (cost of first land)
-------------------------------
L$28274 - L$29810

at US$3.00/L$1000 exchange rate = US$84.82 - US$89.43
at US$3.50/L$1000 exchange rate = US$98.96 - US$104.34
at US$4.00/L$1000 exchange rate = US$113.10 - US$119.24

Cost of account = US$72.00
Profit in 1 year = US$12.82 - US$47.24

Do you think the fact that new premium accounts can make real money just by signing up is good for the economy or bad for the economy?

This has been know for a long time, when the markets were at $5.00/l$1000 it was really profitable. I think money can be better invested in other ways.

you forget that people tend to spend their money right away just to get out of the newbie avies and own land.

So add the cost of:
Land $512 and up (depending if they want pg or mature)
Skins $1k - 4k average
Hair $100-$400
Shoes $100-$500
Eyes $25-$100
Clothes 1 outfit $100-$1000 depending on who they buy from.
Poses for AO's $50-$100 per pose
House purchase if they are new and don't know how to build yet. $free - $500 prefab
Furntiure $100 - 1000 (depends how big your home is and prims you can have)
Teirs $0 - $200 US dollars

That just to be De-Newbiefied. lol

Basic members are less likely to do this righ away. But someone who wants a premium will normally want to establish a place in the world. the look and the home.

I don't know if its good for the economy, but it sure is bad for the $L / US$ exchange rate.

You have to remember that none of this US$ profit comes from LL, it is all from other users buying your 'spare' L$. If everyone tried to do this no L$ would be sold as no one would be buying and thus it wouldn't work.

It is only the case as long as the average user values the L$ high enough, which means good in-world content to justify buying L$. But if you're the one making the good content you'll make shed loads more money than trying this.

It is good for the economy because it stimulates it into action, and since not all premium accounts stay without buying any additional land, as more land is bought (and more L$ needed to buy it causing more transactions on some level) more economic stimulation.

Of course nudging the markets isn't natural, so there might be a backlash eventually, but that can be dealt with in future (or not at all, as Mr. Greenspan will tell you).

It doesn't matter if they spend it, if they spend it they are buying stuff worth that many $L. If it is worth that many $L, it is worth the corresponding amount of $US. In other words, the US$ they didn't have to spend to be De-newbified still has a real money value to them.



Good in-world content has nothing to do with the price of the $L. Second Life could have better content than every game in the world, but if all the $L anyone would ever want was given to them for free, then the $L would be worth US$0. If the $L was never given to anyone for any reason, then the $L would constantly go up in value as it became more and more scarce per person.

You are right that none of this US$ profit comes from LL though. That is what I'm getting at. Do people think that it is alright that this profit can be made by new users at the expense of old users for the sake of Second Life growth?

you might want to rework your post.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KatanaBlade Anubis
You have to remember that none of this US$ profit comes from LL, it is all from other users buying your 'spare' L$. If everyone tried to do this no L$ would be sold as no one would be buying and thus it wouldn't work.

It is only the case as long as the average user values the L$ high enough, which means good in-world content to justify buying L$. But if you're the one making the good content you'll make shed loads more money than trying this.


^^ that isnt by me.

and no they don't need to spend alot of money to get out of their newbie avie, most just do. As an owner of a large shopping mall i see at least 5-10 newbies a day under a week old trying to buy things to get their look or decorate their homes.

But for a brand new person here there is aot of eye candy here and they are out to get dressed up and go have fun.

Hmm, I quoted two different people in the same post to keep from having to post twice. The part you have shows from Surina in the post.

As for newbies spending money: I'm not talking about the cost of no longer being a newbie. I'm talking about how many US$ are given freely to newbies. $L are worth a certain amount of US$. If I give you 1,000,000$L, you would be happy as a clam, because you can now either get US$3500(at US$3.50/$L1000) or US$3500 worth of stuff in second life. Either way, you are getting US$3500 worth of stuff somehow. It is no different with the small amount a newbie gets. They are getting the equivelant of US$ handed to them. My question is, what effect do you think this has on the rest of Second Life?

I beg to differ on getting either 3500US cash out, or 3500 worth of US stuff in game given that 95% of the merchants I have bought from never change their prices you'll either get more or less for your in game linden.

If they tied their prices even just weekly to the current $L avg then you would be closer to the same moneyout in cash as stuff you can buy in world.

Honestly, most items are UNDER valued in game, giving you far more bang for the least amount of US you put in.

As for the effect, going on those numbers above, you'd also have to actually be in the game for a year at the top paid price to maybe see a break even or a ROI, doing absolutely nothing else then logging in and out.

I thought of this too, it was a part of my persausion ensamble for getting my dad to pay 10$ a month ^_^ (I started on the Teen Grid, mind you)

That said, I built my home and furniture from scratch.

I also havn't spent more than 100L total customizing my avi. (As my avi was de-n00bed by the time I left Orientation Island, and the other newbies there were still fumbling with the beachball/table test.)

This in mind, I have a few friends who give me acceses to things that I'd normaly have to pay for, and I've gotten in a few fights becasue I insisted on paying for things...

But. I'm all of 90 days old, and I don't look much different than I did when I got to the WA the first time.

My home:


My avi:


I still never got around to cashing out my $L.
And I donated most of it at the RFL event.
So I'm trying to get my L back up to 10K but my friends keep having birthdays.

Well, saying things are underpriced is not such a simple statement. Underpriced and overpriced vary from person to person. The goods could also be veiwed as overpriced, and becoming more correctly priced as the $L goes down in value. You may think that US$14 is cheap for a skin, while someone else might think that is way too much for the skin and not buy it till the $L devalue so much that the skin only costs US$2.00 to buy. They might think the premium account is the maximum they want to spend a month, and use the $L they bought from Linden Labs to buy it. The point is not about whether content creators overprice or underprice things, however. The point is that every US$ not needed to pay for a $L is a US$ that you would not have if you did buy $L with it.. Are you thinking this amount being handed out is insignificant? I want to know if people think this amount balances out from other things in the long run?

The numbers I show illustrate that a newbie only paying for one month at the more expensive price with a horrible exchange rate of US$3.00/L$1000 still makes more money in that month than they paid. We all know where this money is coming from. With the lack of sinks, it is coming peice by peice out of the pockets of every resident that has $L in their account. To those that would never sell their $L in the first place, this may seem irrelevant. To the content creators that want a US$ profit off of their work, this becomes very relevant.

i think you are missing the point, people don't join and get a premium membership do nothing just to make a profit of a few buck, that is pretty shallow. They come here to play and have fun.

Some people have learned or found ways to conserve their money like Armath Severine.
Learning to build and design. Enjoying the people etc...All the better for them

I think this post was started just to have something to complain about. That is just my opinion though.

No one that I know really makes a profit here in SL without working really hard for it. They put countless hours into their work too. (thumbs up for them)

Your inital Lindens you start with wasn't intended to "Make Profit" but to get started, have money for a land (first land) have upload money for textures, snapshots, animation, sounds.... to get established, Buy some nice things that u admire.

So what if someone wants to pay 10 dollars a month and do nothing, it is their choice. I can say not many willl stick around for that, that would be BORING and pointless and anyone here for any long period time i think can agree... yuo are supose to have fun here.

Yes... I socialize far too much (and make gifts) far too often to turn a profit.

Like people insisting I sell the shoes I made... silly me. I made them for my friends. ^.^

I do want to get a buisness going eventually... I'm a bit of a miser, I want to say I have a bunch of L, even if I dont use it, ever ^_^ It's fun watching the number grow.

The closest thing I have like that is my photogrpahy shack in Rapture... that I, myself, want to demolish.

You are still responding to something completely different than what I'm saying. I know that newbies use this money to get started. What I'm trying to get people to think about is that a newbie is given more US$ then what they pay Linden Labs. When you get a premium account, you are given the equivelant of US$2.87-US$47.24 more than what you paid throughout the month or year. US$ don't just appear out of no where. The thing I wish people would think about is where is that money coming from. Is Linden Labs giving that money to people? Just trying to get people to think. Whether it is right or wrong, should depend more on what effects this money has on residents and Linden Labs. We have already decided that the new resident is helped, what you haven't even touched on is the other parties involved. Do you think other residents are helped or hurt? Do you think Linden Labs would do better with more or less given away in Premium accounts?

Obviously I am answering it. But since you want a straight forward answer.
No I don't think it hurts, it is called incentive. Kinda like in the game Monopoly, you collect 200 for passing go, but you want to reinvest that money into buying land.

Let's think about where the money comes from... hmm Membership fee, Land fee, Auction land, Private Islands. I suggest you add some numbers there.

As a Sim owner and member since June 2004, I appreciate that little incentive to stay and encourage new people to stay (was my previous points you missed), considering my island was a grand down and 200 us dollars a month, and Membership fees. (Imagine other Players that own more than one sim)

I dont see anything wrong with the Lindens giving some of it back to the comunity at all. In a nutshell without giving something back to the community you will lose members. In 6 years I have been in 4-5 different 3D communities before this one. They give you squat and you make no real US dollars, and take high membership fees. Those communities are also behind in technology and no where nearly as sucessful as SL.

Don't try to fix what isn't broken. and if that answer isnt clear enough...

"you are given the equivelant of US$2.87-US$47.24 more than what you paid throughout the month or year" I put more into the community then I am given, so do many others,
It isn't hurting Linden lab.

Answer this..... How Much do you contribute to the community? How are you as an individual helping the World turn?

You are mistaken on where the money comes from. You are naming more fees that people pay. I'm trying to find where the profit a premium account makes gets the US$ from. Linden Labs never give back US$ to the community directly. Am I wrong, is there some way of getting Linden Labs to pay you US$? Linden Labs only give you $L, which means you need another resident to give you US$ for that money to have the US$ given back to the community. The reason I'm not counting the fees you mention, is because they are not related to the money I'm pointing out being recieved. You get $L500 a week whether or not you pay other fees. You get first land without having to pay teir or auction costs. If I was discussing other sources of money, I would discuss these other fees. I'm discussing the fact that $L and first land are being given out that have more value than even Linden Labs receives. What I'm trying to get you to realize is who is hurt by this fact. Anyone that has $L is hurt by this fact. You don't suddnly have more US$ being paid for $L just because there are more $L available. You simply get less US$ for your $L. There are things that could balance this out called sinks, but if you have been here since last year, then you have already seen that the sinks aren't working. You will realize that your $L does not bring nearly the same amount of US$ that it did a year ago.

What I, you, or the new person do for the community is irrelevant. None of us force people to give us $L. People decide to give $L to others by their own free will. In my opinion, if you have $L, you have the right to the value of that $L no matter how you got it(including stipends). I don't care if someone makes their $L through selling land, owning a casino, modeling, prostitution, or any other method that others might consider wrong. Obviously, some of these methods of earning $L are considered wrong to people, but someone has found their service or product worth the cost, or else they wouldn't have the $L in the first place.

All people, liked or not are hurt if their $L is being devalued, however. The newbie that everyone including myself agree is important is hurt just as much by the fact that $L are worth less as everone else is. $L500 buys less and less land as the $L goes down in value. Other things will eventually go up in price as well if the $L continues its overall fall in value. Stipends are part of that devaluation. The destruction of stipends is not the answer to fix the problem. There is a problem though. That problem needs to be recognized by people if it is ever going to be fixed.

Your question was Is it good that the "first" premium accounts makes people money?
and Do you think the fact that "new" premium accounts can make real money just by signing up.

Maybe you need to reword your First question then because My First reply was based on new premium accounts. "First" & "New" these are words in your origonal post.

Then you say Linden Labs never give back US$ to the community directly, actually up until just a month ago give or take, the developers incentives were Check by mail "cash" or credit towards your land billing. So there saying NEVER you are WRONG. Now they just do credit. It still saves me money, I may not get actual cash anymore (always took credit anyways) but I pay less fee's.

Problem I see is you are making mountains out of molehills and you are looking at the black and white and not the whole picture. Or just want to complain about something i dunno. but it is giving me a headache.

My point in all my posting is, it doesnt matter one way or another it all is shifted around.
"What I, you, or the new person do for the community is irrelevant." that is a crock.

and you still never answered my question.
How Much do you contribute to the community? How are you as an individual helping the World turn?

Thank you for correcting me about the developer's incentives, I did not realize these were US$ values given out in this way. Unfortunately the receipt of these bonuses still has nothing to do with signing up for your first premium account.

Your first reply was not responding to the first question. You talked about fees that have nothing to do with premium accounts. You talked about possible options people could take after they had their premium account, which is completely skipping the question in the first place. If I'm asking about the money made on premium accounts. Why do you talk about fees that have nothing to do with having a premium account. Hair, eyes, skins, non-first land. What do these have to do with premium accounts.

The mountain I'm talking about is not a mole hill.
http://www.gamingopenmarket.com/priceChart.php?symbol=SLL&w=500&h=500&maxpts=1000
Are you really suggesting that the value of the $L halfing is a mole hill?

And yes contribution is irrelevant when talking about the value of the $L or existance of a stipend. It is a subjective question. You can tell me you make clothes. I could look at your clothes, and decide that they are worthless garbage I would never want. Someone else could look at the clothes and decide they absolutely love them.

I have scripted lots of small scripts for my friends. I am working on a very large group of scripts that will run a 1/4-1/2 sim project in the next month or two. Is it really relevant whether anyone will like what I'm making. If they don't like it, my work will make me no $L, and all is good. What does that have to do with the stipend, premium accounts, value of the $L, or first land? Anything?

I also sell land. I'm finding the competition in the land selling business is fierce. My teir fee for the land I own, pays for empty land. This is land that would not give money to Linden Labs unless I tried to sell it. It would sit in an auction. If land was only available in an auction, prices would not be lower, because you would be competing in the auction against the same people that pay me $L3.0-$L7 per meter2 now. It would most likely be the same price. I contribute a teir fee to Linden Labs that helps pay the server costs just like everyone else that pays teir.

And I still don't know why you keep claiming I'm complaining. Have I said once that premium accounts are horrible, and they should be ended. No I've given the numbers that show the value of what is recieved in US$ verses the cost paid to Linden Labs to get these benefits. I've asked people to actually think about what effect this has. Just because you want to talk about tangents like contribution to the communinty, teir fees, skin costs, eye costs, and hair costs, does not mean that I'm talking about what you are talking about. This is my last post to you. You are talking about apples. I'm talking about oranges.

Actually I dont think you even know what you are talking about anymore.

First off you contantly contradict yourself.
"I'm trying to find where the "profit" a premium account makes gets the "US$ from. "
Linden Labs never give back US$ to the community directly."
How you making US dollars from just signing up? when in the same sentence you say linden lab never gives US dollars back?

then u say "Linden Labs only give you $L, which means you need another resident to give you US$"

that right there is contradicting to your set idea you make US dollars off signing up.

"Do you think the fact that new premium accounts can make real money just by signing up is good for the economy or bad for the economy?"

New Premium accounts are not being given $US they are being given $L and LL doesnt have to pay for the $L so they are not paying out $US to New Accounts

and btw "You get $L500 a month whether or not you pay other fees."
Actually it is 500L a week

hmmm, I guess I will post to you again. Bah, I'm not wanting to, but this is no longer about the original subject. You don't talk about stipends, you don't talk about premium accounts, you don't talk about anything that has anything to do with anything I've made any statements about. Instead of talking about anything we have discussed, you take two of my comments out of context, and you point out a mistake in another comment. Are you trying to distract people? Do you really care more about a single word mistake than you do about my meaning? Writing is not my strong point. I admit it. Does my mistake in writing the word month instead of week really make any difference? Was it a mistake I made in the numbers I presented?

Let's look at this supposed contradiction you have. In the second quoted statement, I say that you make money. In the first quoted statement, I say that you make money that is coming from other residents. I am obviously failing miserably at communicating my point to you, so just give up on this conversation instead of trying to take the conversation on an even further tangent.

You aren't trying to discuss anything with me. You are trying to change the subject, call me a complainer, and knit-pick my mistakes. It is really starting to get annoying. I'm telling you as nice as I can manage that I've given up on trying to make any point to you. Just leave me alone and let things be.

Actually I was discussing my opinion at first.

No matter what answer you got you kept saying I was wrong.
I didnt know it was a matter of right and wrong it was an opinion.

My opinion was that the money is spent in game with someone new, and what they spend it on cost more then what they get when they join.

But I am tired of discussing this with you because all you wanted was someone to share your view. I don't agree with them, so what.

You think there is profit being new, I don't. You see numbers, I see people playing SL to have fun. You see US dollars for just joining, I see US dollars only if you work hard for it.

You think my opinion is wrong, but that is exactly what it is, an Opinion.

the only thing we both agree on is that this discussion is anoying.

Have a Nice day

Forgive me for asking, but do any of these calculations include this recently announced change?

It doesn't look like he added those figures in.

What is nice about the referal Incentives is you can be a basic or a premium account to get a referal bonus.

Your reasoning is kinda screwy man, that amount of profit in one year is nothing and will barely have much of any effect on the economy. Considering you paying the monthy and then you don't spend L on anything at all. (This will not happen unless you make the account just so you can have what amounts to about 40 dollars after all is said and done with the service fees of transfering the money after investing $120 if you paid the minimum account fee..thats just nonsense.)

Your $40 dollars is less than what I used to make converting my money on the GOM a week. So I doubt your yearly transaction would have any effect on the economy of SL.