A modest proposal

I propose that those of us who do not sell L's put a 60 day moratorium on buying any L's from any third party site or from LindeX. Also I strongly suggest all content creators pull thier product and any productrion of free content cease. Let's let the money mongers see how it feels when no one can buy thier L's from them for a while and they can't get squat since not a one of them can create a roll of toilet paper, let alone a toilet to use it in. If they want to start something, then let's finish it.

and eat babies! we must also eat babies :3

I'm not joking. These money mongerring idiots who called for this "fix" have only killed inworld busines. IT's not a fix as it will actually exacerbate the issue. More new ppl will sign up for a free account and find out they can't do anything in SL without buying L's. They'll turn around and head out for other programs, mostly RPG's since those you can have fun in without cash. Fewer ppl will be buying content therefore more content creators will no longer be able to aford rent for thier places of business/homes. Those who do own land for thier shops will most likely tier down struggling to get by and ultimately try being basics, then leave. A lot of major content creators have already left due to LL"s lack of support. Fewer ppl will buy the L's as there will be fewer to buy them. tell me money mongers, what are your L's worth when you can't sell them at all except to one another hoping to control each others' buying? Most of the ppl who caused for this have a lot of textbook learning about an economy, but the flip side is most of them don't know squat about reality on an economy. There's an old saying, if the book is so dam*ed smart put a wrench in it's hands and put it to work. Your numbers don't mean anything except you are all attempting to undercut one another and placing blame where it does not belong. The obvious answer is for Linden to make ALL third party sales or purchases of L's a bannable offense and set a price on them.

Who are the money mongerers?

Look for the ones screaming for an end to stipends, and also make note that the real cause of the L falling is L sales on third party sites for far below market value in huge blocks. It's a standard market manipulation tactic. Sit on a pile of stock, wait then sell it all at once so values plummet, create a panic and put out false info as to the cause. And At least two of the ones backing this are alts of the same person and I ahve my suspicions about a third since thier double-speak pretty much matches in pattern and content, usually a dead giveaway that it's an alt.

So you telling us ****ed if we do ****ed if we don't? Our money is losing value the only fix LL appears willing to entertain now is zapping stipends. And your determined to make sure the value of the linden collapses either way?

You have to pay a monthly fee to play MMORPGs and if you want to play a single player RPG you have to buy it. So I don't see how you're having fun without cash.

Second, the biggest appeal for many people of SL is not buying goods, it's creating things. No RPG can offer you the same freedoms to create you have in SL.

No Jon, you now me better than that and I am not so stupid nor do I count you among those others. HOwever they do need a hard cold leson in what this end of stipend WILL cost everyone in SL, and Linden Labs. Since most of the customer base is newbies and they now no longer get L's in the form of stipend to spend, how are content creators going to pay rent etc? I know I won't buy thier L's since this has been caused by thier greed, shortsightednes, manipulation and above all thier panic breeding lies. What should be done and should ahve ben done all along is Linden take control of the L value by banning anyone caught indulging in thirds party L transaction. Set a value on L's as purchase price, buy out those who want to cash out and also sell said L's with a small markup for themselves..end of problem. I don't however see the end of content creation in SL and the end of content sales as solution for anyone. Basically all Linden has accomplished is taking the most expensive 3D chat online and make it more expensive along with cutting our throats and everyone else's. If RBD wants to see what it's like when he can't sell ANY L's let's show him.


Sometimes Jon, you can't get people to listen until you show tyhem the hard way. I think it's time that those of us in the real majority showed the minority of greed mongers just how much constrol over us they really ahave. Again not including you in this.

You don't however have to spend even more buying in game currency. SL is already the most expensive chat online. IT jsut got even more expensive and we can all get ready to see a lot of fall of in premium account purchases, goods, land and L purchases along with a lot of content creators leaving.

If people stop buying Lindens, the exchange rate will get *worse*. Moron.

My business is alive and well. If you can't convince people to spend a few dollars of real money, then you're not making anything worthwhile.

"SL is already the most expensive chat online."

No. It's one of the cheapest. FFX or WOW anyone?

Musuko.

Which does not change the fact that other RPGs (and for the record I don't believe SL is an RPG or MMO but I'm using your definition) are not free, as you claimed they are. I would even argue that having to spend $50 to purchase the game and then knowing you have to spend $15 each and every month to play it is a much bigger hurdle than joining SL for free and having to buy money when you need it. Heck, even the $10/month premium account is cheaper than any MMO and you get 500L a week which is enough for many people.

Sometimes I think that people equate newbie to newborn, without the ability of rational thought. We are all adults here and any rational adult can understand that joining SL for free to see if they like it, and then having to spend $10 for a few Lindens is still cheap. Not to mention, again, that nothing else like SL exists in the first place. All my friends here like SL because of the varied world and the infinite possibilies, not because it's cheap.

So what if the exchange rates get bad

I don't know what you are saying, but if you are saying that people who actually create content and add value to SL should be "paid appropriately" instead of money grabbing by manipulators, then I 100% support it.

I once mentioned this when I started a thread to end freebie culture and all jumped on me like hell. how strange, they are being manipulated everyday, but don't like to pay to those ones who d actually give them value. they are everyday being robbed by those who add nothing to SL, and take the lion share. these people are a curse cause you deny to pay the craftsman and jump on him like hell when he suggests to be justly paid for his/her work.

Long term success of SL is heavily dependant on the builders/content providers. If they make a "wage", SL will thrive by steadily increasing quality from craftsmen who d spend their time and effort more and more. After all, that is the edge SL has over competition, it must be helped, supported and strengthened in it. Whereas these manipulators who add nothing, would only keep craeting more and more trouble for everyone. exactly as they are doing: as they are making harder and harder for content creators, so eventually they would leave and SL will suffer on the expense of their profit mongering.

But sure it will have to happen, unless you guys learn to support the ones who actually add value in SL.

And that's the big issue. If the L$ is to become stable, that cannot continue to be the case.

If SL's "big bonus" to users is creating things, then only users who create things will want to stay. And as we see, people who create things want to be rewarded for their efforts, not to have to buy L$ regularly. That means they won't buy L$, and if no-one buys L$... then down goes the economy.

SL has to become more attractive to those people who do not create things in order to stabilise the economy. Unfortunately, at the moment, the fact that the creators are offered freedom to create, comes at the cost of non-creators' freedoms to do other things.

Not all creators will make it to the end. Quality will win. theres tough competition emerging in-world in every field. Buyer, sure there are buyers, not everyone creates everything. but on principle, I agree with you that more consumers will do good.

What I notice all the time, most of you are stuck with short time L$ value and don't think in terms of long term SL success and stability. if you change the perspective, we might come up with better conclusions that would really help LL, and everyone in SL.

I'm not sure I see your point here. Why are you predicting that only the content creators will stay? Obviously there are plenty of people buying things in SL every day, far more the weekly $50L stipend would allow. Just look amount of products puchased daily on the main page. So clearly people are already willing to spend and from their perspective, the decline of the Linden is a good thing, they can buy more for their money.

If anything, I would more worried about content creators leaving than the SL consumer. Having said that I don't see it happening any time soon, SL is doing very well overall.

Not enough people are willing to pay US$ for L$. If they were, they would be doing so and the L$ wouldn't be declining.



The SL consumer leaving is a problem that contributes to the decline of the L$. It is important to retain content creators but that should not be the be-all-end-all of all consideration.

That's actually not the problem at all, the problem is there is more new money coming into SL than there is leaving via money sinks. Plenty of people are purchasing Lindens. There are over 10 million lindens sold per day. Given that there are generally 5000-6000 people logged in at any one time that's a lot.

The problem is, people don't buy lindens just to keep them, they buy them to spend them...and that money goes back up for sale on the Lindex to pay tier and earn money for the content creators.

Until we see a better balance of money coming in and going out the general trend for the Linden will be declining value. Even still, it's not the end of the world. While the dollar for dollar exchange is worse, I would wager many people are making more overall due to the heavy influx of new residents daily. SL is growing at a very fast rate.

I don't see a lot of people leaving. In fact, of the people I've accumulated on my friend's list over the past 10 months (many of them newbies who come into my shop), there are maybe 10-15% that never log in anymore. I agree it's a small sampling but it still seems to me that SL has a very good retention rate for residents.

Fine let it get worse. That's the only way these idiots who are all overjoyed about stipend ending will listen is when they see what they are causing. Also can't compare WOW or most of the MMORPG's to SL as SL is NOT a game as so many people misname it...it is a CHAT. Now compare it to the price of other chats...outerworlds, there, moove, AW, OW, CNW....etc etc

Firstly, what's with the name calling? Second, you were the one claiming people would leave SL for RPGs because they didn't need cash to play them. I simply pointed out the falacy in that statement.



It's obvious SL is nothing like WoW and I don't expect it to have the same target user base. Of those other platforms you mentioned (of the ones I've heard of) none of them allow you to do the same kinds of things you can in SL.

Also, you mentioned There. You have to buy money there as well. It's not free.

If there were more people purchasing Lindens, the devaluation would not occur. Money is being added to SL, but that's because new people and content are always arriving. If a high enough proportion of those would buy L$ then the devaluation would not be occurring.



That's true, but it's not the whole story. Do those residents buy L$?

"Fine let it get worse. That's the only way these idiots who are all overjoyed about stipend ending will listen is when they see what they are causing."

You want it to get worse just so you can go "I told you so"? Surely you should want things to improve?

Stipends need to end. It's obvious that an economy with an imbalance between the money printed and the money burned will be unstable. If you double the number of notes in circulation, the value of each note will halve. Halve the number of notes and the value doubles.

"If there were more people purchasing Lindens, the devaluation would not occur."

Exactly. We need to reduce the flow of created Lindens and increase the number of Lindens purchased. What other action does both of these more perfectly than ending stipends?

Musuko.

Dmitri:

Do you truly believe that everyone can be lumped into two groups:

money mongers = people calling for an end to stipends
content creators = people who want stipends to continue

If so, you could not be further from the truth.

I am the one who initiated the call for those who wished for an end to stipends to step up to the plate and voluntarily opt out of their weekly linden stipends (/130/a0/109283/1.html).

I am also a content creator. I have never sold a single Linden on any exchange. I have only bought Lindens to use to buy things from others. The Lindens I've received via my Premium Account stipend I've used to upload textures and my designs. Furthermore, I've hired other content creators to do work for which I have no talent or no time to do.

I know that you have good intentions, but you need to look into what is being debated a little more carefully. It is not a black and white issue. Economies are terribly difficult entities to understand and manage.

In RL, I am a business owner. I know a thing or two about how free-market economies work and what happens when certain attributes are out of balance. It affects me in RL when the economy of the US is out of balance.

I care about the health of the SL economy because it drives the future development of SL. If the economy fails, then SL will become just like other virtual platforms. I don't think that the SL economy is broken, but it is headed for difficult times if measures are not enacted soon. There are those of us who believe that one issue that needs to be addressed is the quickly growing money supply.

If the money supply keeps growing at its current rate (6.6% per month), it will lead to serious problems down the road. It cannot grow faster, month after month, than the number of new consumers added (people who actually buy Lindens not use their free ones), or the value of the Linden in the currency market will decline even faster. This is exactly what currency traders want since they can make more profits during times of market instability than they can during times of market stability.

The only reason that money supply is out of control is because of the free money created and handed out each week in the form of stipends. Controlling the money supply is just one of several issues that need to be addressed but it is the easiest one to address at this juncture.

So, do you really think that since I'm calling for the end to stipends (on a voluntary basis by the way), that I'm a money monger who cares less about content creators and even less about SL?

I think a truer statement would be "if there were less Linden's for sale the devaluation would not occur."

People buying Lindens isn't really the answer because they just spend that money and boom, it's back on the Lindex for sale.

Person A is selling 10,000 Lindens
Person B buys 10,000 Lindens
Person B spends 10,000 Lindens in Person A's shop
Person A is selling 10,000 Lindens
Meanwhile, 10,000 more Lindens have entered the economy via stipends and the value goes down because Person C has tier to pay and needs to sell his Lindens before Person A.
Repeat

Nothing has been accomplished. See, it doesn't matter how much they buy because they spend it (why would you buy money you're not going to spend?) and that money generally ends up back on the Lindex. The other situation is people buying Lindens with the sole purpose of selling them again at a lower value for profit. That could be even worse because they have a greater impetus to sell.

You're right that people need to buy Lindens, but at the same time there HAS to be a balance between money coming in and money going out or no amount of buying will lower the value in the long run. It's certainly very complex hehe