Volunteer to End Your Premium Acct. Stipends

We will keep the schedule as originally announced. We can alter it later as necessary:

Location: Governor Linden's Mansion, a Sec, Clementina (182, 110, 61)
Day: Each Tuesday (well, I guess it is already Tuesday in Europe. So everything will be based on EST)
Time first group: 9 am EST
Time second group: 9 pm EST



So far we have two confirmed people from the volunteer list. Mad Wombat wants to attend but he may have a scheduling conflict. I will PM the others on the list to let them know. It will take a while before we find the optimum two times for all interested parties. My guess is that we will have only a handful of people on this first attempt.

I will be at the 9 pm party. Also, I will try to make the 9 am party tomorrow morning but cannot guarantee that I will be there.

As we begin this grass roots effort, it is important that you share our efforts with your friends in-world and ask them to join. Many may not be interested or even agree and that, of course, is their prerogative. It is not clear how many people read the Land and the Economy forums. Without your in-world, proactive communication, our cause may fall on deaf ears.

If you bring banners or signs, please keep them clean and civil. At the end of our protest, please remove them.

If you have added your name to the volunteer list, please let me know if you will be attending either of the two parties. If you are just catching up on this excruciatingly long thread, you're welcome to join us at either or both of the parties.

It is interesting that there is a counter demonstration forming to protest our protest and show their support for the continuation of stipends (/130/9d/110276/1.html). Their protest will be held at the same place as ours just one half hour later. They are asking for civility also and have purposefully set their time so as to give us sufficient time to do our thing.

Many of the posts from those who wish to keep stipends do not seem to truly understand our point or the economics behind it. That is fine. The fact that opinions are being debated and ideas are being shared (in a surprisingly courteous manner overall) is a good sign that we have people that care about the health and future of SL. I am glad to see this development as I believe it brings attention to the issue at hand.

As I've stated several times in this thread, I don't have to agree with someone to get alone with them. It is important to foster and respect differing points of view.

I still wished that you would give the "burn" money to the red cross or so.

Throwing away money is so useless.. You all could have done good with it.

you all can still do good with it!!

Why not give all your money to me, instead? I never spend it, or cash it out, so I'd be just as effective a "sink" as donating it to Governor Linden.

Seriously, though, the psychological effect of having regular "burning" parties is likely to further the damage to the exchange rate, and cause more people to raise prices. These are much more likely than you getting the Lindens to change their fiscal policy.

Something else to consider: If LL were to get rid of stipends for all new premium players, who would get new money when the economy eventually does grow faster than the money supply? All the older, established players. You'll end up placing more and more control of the currency supply into the hands of the richest, and taking the fun away from the average consumer.

Well, a couple of thoughts:

I understand the "burn" concept as opposed to giving it to charity. Giving the L$ away would not attack the issue at hand-- that of needing to sink massive L$ and stop market flooding. Nor would it be taking a visible stand before LL or addressing the issue itself. That would just be putting those L$ back into circulation again. So from your standpoint, "burning" them by forcing your own sink (ie giving them to Governor Linden) is a logical step.

I think starting a major movement to get people to withdraw all of their SELL orders from LindeX for a week might be a decent goal. However, it should be realized that the current L$ glut is not caused by the majority of sellers out there. It is caused by the weekly glut of L$ from Linden Lab. Consider: a dealer listing at L280 when the market is selling at L330 is effectively removing L$ from the market. Thus, many sellers have effectively removed millions of L$ from the market simply by refusing to sell at current market levels. So again.. the problem is not being caused by the market... it's being caused by Linden Lab giving away millions of free L$ every week, week after week, without sufficient sinks to counteract that issue.

People have suggested LL offering an addictive activity on SL that costs L$, which go directly to sink (such as a LL operated game or some other such thing). That makes sense, for sure.

But as for myself, I've already decided on my course of action: I'm going to stand by and watch LindeX continue to drive the economy right into the dirt. Why? Because LL doesn't seem to learn by foresight. But let them continue on their own course and suffer the consequenses, what better way to drive the point home?

I (and many others) have told LL their LindeX model is flawed. We predicted what would happen if LindeX was set up as it was... and those predictions came 100% true. LL still isn't listening to our proposed solutions. Instead of taking steps to correct LindeX, they're making it worse... obviously and predictably so.

This gives people the impression of one of two things: Either LL doesn't have a clue as to what it's doing (which would be tragic).... or it knows exactly what it's doing... which implies ulterior, self-serving motives fueled by corporate profit goals. (After all, if LL could crash the market and then turn to selling L$ themselves....). I'm not accusing LL of anything; I'm just voicing what people are already thinking. Considering the steps that have been taken by LL these last few months, these questions are going through a lot of minds right now.

Myself, I think it would be insane for LL to intentionally crash the market. They would lose so many landholders their company would possibly go bankrupt. They would earn a reputation so bad that people would curse their name in national forums. So I would hope that no one at LL would be that almighty idiotic.

That leaves the possibility that they think they know what they're doing and are just ignoring all evidence to the contrary. They are optimistically expecting the market to straighten itself out and in the meantime seem oblivious to the damage they are doing to landholders and merchants.

But, this has all been said before, all over these forums. LL continues on with a marketing method already proven to be failing. So be it. I'm standing by and watching the eventual outcome. That's my solution: let 'em learn the hard way.

I think LL getting rid of stipends for premium players is not a real issue here. There HAS to be a way of injecting new L$ into the system as such is required. And Premium members need a reason to be premium. You get rid of stipends, and almost every Premium user on the grid drops premium and starts renting land, pure and simple.

What would make more sense would be to completely stop all stipends to non-paying users, period-- new and old. Put in some serious across-the-board sinks that affect everyone equally, not just merchants or land managers. Stabilize the value of the L$ and stop playing games with the economy. The company needs to get sensible and responsible rather than acting like teenagers at their first beer party.

There is a lot of good that could come out of a market crash.

For one, many people will realise that it's not worth renting land, and instead it's better to have the security of ownership instead (and it would be an equivalent or better deal) ... and we might see some of the land barons disappear.

Very few of them do it because it's fun or they like to provide a service, or because they are running a particular 'themed' region. Most are in it purely to make money, at the expense of the player, Second Life and Linden Labs, with no thought to anything else.

Assuming that the servers are rented in a server farm... surely losing a few private islands would free up some servers and allow them to be sold back, thus lowering LL's monthly costs? The mainland is, I guess, LL's "core land" which can never be cut back; islands are expendable.

Lewis

If LL can come up with an across-the-board sink, that would be ideal. But getting rid of all stipends would have much the same effect as getting rid of just new stipends. Over time, all the money would end up in the hands of the land barons and major content providers. Whatever people bought on the exchange market would quickly be spent and end up right back in their accounts.

This would choke the economy and create an even worse aristocratic class system than we have already. As the population grows, new money needs to be put into the hands of the people most inclined to spend it, or Second Life will stagnate.

Okay, just a couple of points. I appreciate everyone's input, even those that differ from my own. I will offer my thoughts on your suggestions after our first party.

Please note, as I have said on several other threads, trying to correct a misconception, I am not for ending all stipends. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, stipends could stay as long as sufficient, additional sinks were added to SL. If, over time, the sinks helped to bring the money supply back to a realistic level, then that would be great.

But, currently, the money supply is not at a healthy level and that has a negative affect on the economy. So, we forward today but want to continue this discussion.

Do you realy think that returning L$ is a good idea?

1] You can help the red cross or whatever good thing with it.
2] Go to a camping hole and pay people for not camping.
3] Ask the lindens to mabey take half of it and to donate it to RL agancy.
4] I bet there are much more noble things to do with your paid for L$ money..

Just returning L$ is so useless.

1) would require someone (Red Cross?) to sell that $L on Lindex to convert it into cash. Doesn't take the $L out of the economy and will only drive the value lower by adding more to the sell orders.
2) again, still keeps the $L in the economy
3) Would cost LL WAAAAY too much. Half of all the $L in the current economy is tens, if not hundreds, of USD. If you mean half of what we burn, that still leaves half in the economy
4) Possibly, yes.

But our burning of $50, $100, or $500 is really not that much of a loss, especially when a $100,000 block of $L has lost $30USD in the last two weeks alone (that's about $9,000L to $10,000L worth). i.e. I lost the equivalent of $20,000L in just the last two weeks, just because of the devaluation of $L, which we believe is caused by too much $L being added into the economy by LL. $500 seems paltry compared to that.

P.S. I am also against eliminating all stippends. I preffer either more sinks, or, as an easy fix, simply a reduction of stippends. I think simply reducing premium accounts from $500 a week down to $330 will be enough to possibly even bring the $L value back to $250/$1

aEoLuS, thank you for your ideas! I agree with you on points 3 and 4 and I concur with Rasah's post above.

But with points 1 & 2 it comes down to this. The money supply keeps growing faster than the number of consumers. This can lead to currency devaluation which can lead to inflation which can lead to content creators, such as myself, receiving fewer Lindens. By simply giving the money to others in world or spending it in world, the money stays in circulation. It does not reduce the money supply.

Whereas there is no economic emergency, as some people claim that we are "crying", it may lead to serious problems down the road. We are suggesting one of several proactive measures--not reactive.

This issue is not black or white. As I said in another thread, this proverbial coin that we're flipping (debating) has more than two sides. Some want to keep all stipends, some want to end all stipends, and many of us want a limit to stipends.

K, just so much I disagree with in this post. Except the very first line:



Yeah, if it woke LL up to the fact that LindeX is a failure, that would be good. But it's kind of like breaking a leg to prove the bike is broke. Would be much better to realize the facts ahead of time and fix the bike before the accident happens.



You know, I see so many posts against land barons and merchants... and they are soooo misinformed. It seems to be one of SL's on private bigotries.

Land Barons are not the "evil bad greedy people" some people paint them to be. Agreed, there are some who abuse their role (just like any other area of SL or even RL) and they cause problems for everyone. But in a recent SL forum survey on how people felt about the land barons they were renting from, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Why? Because Land Barons offer people many things they cannot achieve otherwise:

* Permanent homes without having to spend money buying land (land can be incredibly expensive)
* Extra security not provided by LL (the abilty to permaban griefers without going through some long, drawn out LL process)
* Immediate responsiveness to user needs.
* Reasonable rent, sometimes even less than LL tier
* A themed/zoned community free of nightclubs and shopping malls

and the list goes on and on. So please, give the land barons a break. I think a lot of this "evil land baron" nonsense is based quite a bit on jealousy and envy and really has no basis on reality. For the most part, land barons do a very good job. I know, I know, at Elf Clan we're "land barons" (a whole four sims) but... ask people who rent from us if they prefer our sims or mainland. See what answers you get.



I said it before and I'll say it again: there is nothing wrong with making an honest buck. Apparently a lot of people like what the land barons are doing... because they keep paying them. Otherwise, they'd just go out and buy one of the multitudinous plots available on SL and own their own land. So for the land barons to make a profit... people must be willing to pay them, eh? The price of land on SL has stabilized at or under L$6/m ever since I've been on this system. In order for a land baron to make a "killing", they have to be able to buy land for far less than that and then turn around and sell it within 30 days. In the meantime, they have to pay tier on that land. So it's not all that easy to make a buck selling land. It takes real skill to earn a profit... which is how an economy based system works. SL is an economy-based system. I know a lot of folks don't like that, but them's the facts, Jack.



Lewis, that would be like saying "Let's quit our job to reduce our cost of gasoline in driving back and forth to work."

Yes, I agree, that if LL were to cut the existing sims by half, it would probably run a little smoother. But that is not going to happen. For one thing, private islands are LL's bread and butter (that's why they sell so many of them). It costs over $3,600 the first year to set up a private island. That is income for LL. For every private island that shuts down, it's a loss to LL of $195 a month in tier fees. Islands are expendable? I don't think so, Tim. LOL.

In addition... Mainland is turning into one great big, disorganized "garbage heep" of builds. (Just visit Junghee sim if you don't believe me). The private islands are quickly becoming the only refuge of beauty and order on the grid. While I do agree there is an inordinate strain on the central servers, that strain seems to be caused by increase membership, not increased private islands. I think the system simply is not able to handle 200,000+ members. SL is basically outgrowing all its clothes and they don't have new ones ready. The foundation is shaky, the data core is unstable, sims crash daily, lag is absolutely awful and basic features (such as rezzing things properly past 20m) have been sacrificed to allow extra members on board. There seems to be no plans to upgrade to a more stable foundation. So yes, there are major problems. But I don't think private islands are the core of those problems.

We held out first Stipend "burning" Party this morning at Gov. Linden's Mansion--nice place, by the way (although the pool needs more chlorine).

Here's who showed up:

Volunteering to Opt out of Stipends
Svar Beckersted
Bloop Cork

S.O.S.--Save Our Stipends
Cocoanut Koala
Lewis Nerd
Auriga Brissot

And the ever popular Anti-protest Protesters!
Memir Quinn
Jillian Callahan


No representative from LL was present; perhaps because they were given short notice.

It was a civil discussion. We all agreed that the economy has issues that need to be addressed. The solutions, however, we did not agree on. However, it's a good start!

I'll see those who wish to participate, tonight.

Aww, I was stuck at work. Will definitely be there tonight for the 9pm EST meet. Kinda sucks I missed this one cause I've been wanting to meet Lewis Nerd in-game. Heard he's a pretty cool guy, plus although I am very much for limits on influx of new $L (reducing stippends), and am for free economy, trading, etc, I'm sure LEwis and I have quite a bit in common (I like disco, for one, and I am actually quite socialist iRL).

Lewis is cool. It's the first time I met him.

Think he is kinda lonely, I have seen him sitting in a SL bus stop waiting for a bus that never came..

I just made a record of this mornings transaction.

Transaction History Back to Your Account


The following list shows up to 500 most recent transactions for May 30, 2006. For a complete list of transactions on this day, download an XLS file for May 30, 2006.

Results: ‹ Earlier

Download (May 30, 2006)

Type Debit Credit Time Description To/From Balance
Gift 500 2006-05-30 06:21:30 Governor Linden 7196
Stipend Base 500 2006-05-30 02:58:34 SYSTEM 7696

I like the look but Bloop and I had to pay a rock, it would be much easier if there was an official box there in which to deposit the money. Believe me it isn't easy to pay a rock.

LOL! Poor Lewis. He is a nice guy. I appreciate the fact that he came in-world while he was at work to support his viewpoint. That says it all in my book!

build a Governor Linden efigee

hah i'm sorry to intrude on your thread but i like your sense of humour

Yeah, it is ridiculous paying a rock. If a LL staffer had been there, we could have paid him/her.

Also, for those that want to participate, you can pay any rock on Linden land as they all belong to the Governor.

Some people who support our cause may not feel comfortable posting in this forum and/or attending a "burning" party. If that describes you, then go to any Linden-owned parcel and do the following:

- Find a parcel of Linden Land
- Right-click (command click for Mac users) on the land
- Go to the general tab. It should say Owner: Governor Linden
- Click on Gov. Linden's Info button. His profile should come up
- At the lower left of his profile window, you'll see a "Pay" button. Click that
- Enter the amount you wish to "Burn". When we say "Burn" we mean return.

Please note, you do not have to pay your entire stipend allotment. As stated above, I and others are not necessarily for ending all stipends. We think there needs to be a limit placed on them at this time. Therefore, feel free to pay what you want, whether that is one Linden or your entire stipend. The more people who do this, the more likely LL will take notice.

If a bunch of people want to remove their stipends from the game and be heard to spread the idea, I suggest collecting the L$ together and buying expensive classified ads, say for example, L$100,000 each.

Classifieds are a sink and would remove the L$ from the game and allow for your message about stipends to be seen by a larger audiance in a productive and safe way. Every L$100,000 could be used towards a new classified ad. The large amount would guarantee a top placement against the current rates. People would also be able to see exactly how much was 'burned' on the ad.

This would clearly make a larger impression rather than people simply saying 'I burned X dollars' since the proof is in the ad cost, acting something like a public receipt.

If people were interested, someone could setup an alt or group to collect the funds and openly share whos contributed, how much has been spent on ads, etc. to make sure everyone knows thier funds are going towards the ads.

I like that idea. Maybe Bloop could set something up like this?

This is a wonderful idea, yet we need to have a trustworthy person who won't run away with the money.

You would need someone trust worthy, but I think it would not be hard to find a good public figure in this group who could be trusted enough to get it started. Trust would be built over time as ads are posted generating proof of receipt.

Openness of transactions would also greatly improve trust, perhaps setup a webpage that displays all transactions of the account if an alt were used. You can easily collect this data in the form of HTML (.html) or Excel Spreadsheets (.xls) from the Second Life account page.