Did LL Just Remove the Basic Stipend?

Take a look at "Membership Plans" on the SL website: http://secondlife.com/whatis/plans.php

The "Basic Allowance" line is now gone. There is still a footnote referencing that line, so I don't know if this is a HTML error, or a real change in policy.

Perhaps it is a marketing experiment.

All I know is I'm going to go put all my L$ into "Camping Chairs, Inc." stock right now.

Hmmm, I have a basic account and I can buy L$ on LindeX for real money, or, I can leave my machine logged in and camping all day while I'm at work and all night while I'm asleep, which allows me to externalize all my costs onto LL, my ISP, other players, etc. Think, think, think....

Great idea, really great!

WOW! Let us hope! This would be EXCELLENT economic news! I'm attempting to get the scoop in-world on whether this has really finally happened or is simply an omission. Hopefully someone official will respond too.

I'm glad to see Philip is responding positively to my suggestions.

Wow, the website clearly states:



So it looks like Philip isn't listening that carefully Jamie. Maybe you should start a few more The Lindex is Collapsing posts to get his attention.

That only works so long as a place gets some benefit to having those camping chairs.

Which they don't, any longer, save a spot on the "most popular" list.

the day they take away the premium weekly stipend is the day I, like many others sell their land and break down to free accounts

And a higher listing on all "Find" lists; that's a tad more than "some" benefit, indeed, I believe it may be the primary motivation even now as they are almost all "zombie farm and store".

But, as was noted above, they've failed to listen to our very own greatest fiscal mind since Adam Smith. Oh well, time to sell my CCI stock.

It is improbable that they would remove the premium weekly stipend.

*looks at page from Carl's post*

Hmm, hard call, its currently conflicting as Michael says. Let's wait for a Linden to confirm this. Anyone want to send a feeler out to Answers?

Also, note that Basic (as well as Premium!) accounts on There *always* require US$ to aquire the internal currency, so I still think advantage goes to LL even if Basic Stipend just disappeared.

Again, sit tight and wait for an official statement (or try and 'force the issue' in Answers). For all we know its another typo.

It would be funny if the basic stipend was "evaluated" on how long you logged in the week. This would effectively curb account farming

An interesting idea. I can see people however using the same autoclicker programs they use for camping chairs creating a new kind of farming.

Long term picture...

Camping chairs... L25/hour (or so, depends on the host). Electricity to leave computer on all night... $$$$$. Cost to eventually replace computers left on all night... $$$. Increased risk at hacking leaving unattended computer on all night...$$$.

Your choice, of course.

They, uh, do. Most of these camping chair places are casinos. Pay to play slots that may or may not give you a few L$ back and and a momentary increase on your camping rate. I've visited a few of these places because of friends being there and have some friends who've lost much more in gambling than they'll make on the camping chairs in a long time. Everytime I visit one of these places I can just hear the slot machines whirling constantly. And of course, we still have Dwell, just not DI. And I've seen a lot who put up Metadverse signs right in front of the campers. Since Metadverse only pays if it detects an avatar facing the general direction of the sign for a certain period of time, hey, easy money. I've also seen a lot that erect vendors right in front of the campers. No, I don't think the end of DI spells the end of camping.

I just looked at the Membership Plans page again. That footnote has vanished.

I think you missed the point of this suggestion: it's to stop people from logging hundreds of accounts for a minute and getting hundreds of 50L$ stipends in return. If you have to log in for at least 6 hours each week to get the full L$50, that limits the number of accounts you can manage to get online a great deal (yes, one can get multiple instances of SL to run simultaneously, but it simply wouldn't be worth it anyway).

Is it 1 minute? I seem to remember reading at some point they had to be loggen in for 1 hour during the week to get stipend.

And I agree it would not be gaming hundreds of accounts. but lets say they can run 5 at a time. Set those five up with an autoclicker and go to bed. set up another 5 while you are at work. That takes care of 10 AVs a day with little effort or inconvienence on the gamers part. potentially 70 avs a week

maybe not the same scale you are thinking but not insignificant

Either way, it'd be nice to get some official word on this. LL leaving it up to the rumormill isn't so grand an idea. It seems like it can't be an accident anymore, since they removed the footnote as well. I wonder if this is on suggestion from the new Economic Advisor Linden that they recently hired. If they have in fact cut basic stipends without even so much as a 'Hey, we're cutting basic stipends.' announcement prior to, or even after it's come out, that's very disturbing.

Do you get a fee for editing, Carl?

In such a case, Karsten, it's more a competitive advantage vs. other casinos than anything else, since presumably the people would be there at the slot machines regardless. That's a far cry from any random place sticking camping chairs in, in order to get a higher "find" spot. And, even AFTER all of this... it still seems to come down to having a dependable supply of "free" money at some point; if ALL new L$ production stopped right now, save for replacing what is lost through system fees (uploads, etc) and perhaps a set amount per new account (to maintain a constant "per capita" amount of L$) those schemes would almost certainly become unprofitable mighty quickly.

No matter, regardless. A SL casino where people mindlessly pull slots hour after hour like a rat hitting a lever for a food pellet... well, sounds a like like a RL casino, to be honest. I'm more concerned about the use of such things as non-event to get "free advertising", to be honest.

Camping chairs ARE a competitive advantage. If you're just a gambler who's going to gamble whether there's camping chairs or not then you're probably going to pick the place that has camping chairs and slots over the place that just has slots. And beyond that, the place with the highest paying camping chair. If you're just going for the camping, then the slots lure people in to playing them who otherwise wouldn't go to a casino just for the slots because there's the perceived advantage of increasing your camping rate by paying them. And as I said, we still have dwell. It probably doesn't offset camping chairs completely in most cases, depending on how many you have and how much you pay on them, but it's still a factor.

Hmmm. And here I was just thinking my own tiny stipend as a Basic member could now go to pay the monthly rent on space for my vendors in another mall. Oh well. Fewer ways to sell my stuff, fewer malls making money from me, fewer players spending money for my stuff... oh yeah, that should help the economy a lot...

... from the standpoint of a big, well-established business, and people who can afford to spend lots of RL cash to play in SL. I am sure they will appreciate having less competition from the 'little fish in the pond'.

Before I played in SL, before that HAD 'Free Basic Accounts', I looked at SL, and their monthly fees, and the power level of the system required to play at all, and I said "No thanks!". I didn't even consider joining.

Over a year later, when a friend playing SL indicated a desire for me to join them in-world, I looked at the Free Basic Accounts, and the L$50 allowance for basic accounts, and said "Well, I guess I'll try... I can't really afford a monthly fee, every month. But I guess I could manage on these terms."

Four months later, I'm still a Basic member, and I still can't budget for the fees to go Premium. Yet I've put over $100 USD into the game, buying Lindens for special purchases that I wanted to make. And I've become a content creator, selling clothes and other stuff, and helping the low end of the SL economy to work.

Without that $L50 a week of reliable income, I won't be creating as much new content. Most of my Stipend for the last few months has been spent uploading new textures for the things I sell. If it all has to come from my sales, my development of new things to sell will slow down.

Without that silly little stipend, I'll manage to remain in the game. I am making barely enough now to break even, even without the stipend. And I have played just long enough, and have invested just enough time and money to get to where I am now, that I am not willing to throw it all away.

But if the stipend and free basic accounts had not been there when I started, I seriously doubt I would have joined. Because I would have had to budget real cash for monthly purchases of Lindens to cover my rent and other expenses.

Let's see... Four months, L$50 per week, that's what? L$800 that I received in stipends? Or about $2.84 in US Dollars? Pocket change, really. But without that start to 'prime the pump' and allow me to play long enough to get me interested, I never would have started buying Lindens with real money.

Meanwhile, over those same four months, I've spent over $100 USD of real money to purchase something like L$30,000. Every last bit of that has been spent in-world. I have very little in the way of saved-up Lindens, and have yet to take a single Linden back out of the SL economy by cashing out any 'excess'. But note that most of the Lindens that I bought came after the first two months of play or so, as I decided I was willing to pay for part of the cost of a custom-designed house, to share with my friend.

Oh yeah, me and my little stipend are a real drain on the economy, all right.

Perhaps the best thing would be for the stipend on free basic accounts to last only three to four months. That is enough time to learn to honestly make money in SL, by doing something other than sitting all day on camping chairs, or prostituting yourself at 'tail sales' and other 'escort service' types of jobs. Link it to how long you are on each week, so there is a certain minimum number of hours of play to qualify, like maybe at least 5 hours on-line per week to get a full $50 stipend.

But don't eliminate it entirely, unless you really want to limit who can play solely to the wealthy. Because without it, the less well-off Players won't even start.

4 months / $100 == $25 a month

Premium == $10 a month or $72 a year ($6 a month).

Hmmmm...

Admittedly, you can get a tiny bit more L$ from buying it via exchange instead of getting the stipend, I'm just not buying the 'I CAN'T AFFORD TO GO PREMIUM.'

Actually, Karsten, I ran a similar set of numbers, and with or without the Basic stipend, if you are going to spend L$30K over four months, and you don't buy land, you still get more for your money by remaining Basic.

Not much, admittedly. The Basic member spends about $104 USD with the $L50 per week stipend, or $107 USD without it, to get L$30K to spend over four months.

A Premium member, if they pay a month at a time, spends $115 USD to have the same spending power, and the main thing they get that is better than being Basic is the ability to buy land. (The above numbers were calculated with an exchange rage of roughly L$281 per USD) You could bring the values a little closer yet if you commit to a longer period of time at once for your Premium fee.

If my budget had $25 USD per month free and clear in it each and every month, and if I went into that period INTENDING to spend L$30K, then yes, it's pretty much a push.

But if part of that time you have extra cash, and then maybe you're overdrawn each payday for a month or more? Or if you simply haven't decided yet that SL is worth spending that much money on? It's not so easy. A few of those paychecks, I really regretted having spent that cash on Lindens, when grocery money was tight a week or so later. But they had all been spent by then, so I couldn't get them back.

I know at first, if before playing in SL for a while, if LL had said I would have to fork over $25 USD a month, I wouldn't have seen enough value in SL to pay that. I would not have joined.

And now, for me, I've pretty much stopped paying cash for Lindens. I have enough clothes. I have a nice house (on land belonging to someone else), and what I make and sell just covers a few luxuries each week. So I still don't have to budget that much per month. If I was a premium member, and had to choose between grocery money and paying tier so I could keep my land... I don't want to face that risk. My budget is too unstable.

I think that in three to four months of play, a person has usually either decided "Yes, I like this enough to pay for it", or "No, it's not for me". Having the basic stipend for at least that long gets the new users over the hump.

Indeed, I pointed that out as well, if you'll notice. I'm not saying you don't have a legitimate reason for remaining basic, or that basic accounts don't have a good purpose, or even that basic stipends don't. I don't care about stipends one way or another, premium or basic, but I entirely understand why lots of people do. I was just saying, if you can spend $25 a month on SL, you can spend $10 a month on SL. So argue for the value of basic stipends if you want, just don't say 'OMG I CAN'T AFFORD PREMIUM' because it's apparent you can.