Eliminations Have Improved the Value of our L$!

$50L/wk = 200L month $1 gets you more than that. Are you telling me you can't afford ONE DOLLAR A MONTH? Hope you never buy a bottle of coke from a vending machine. But I'll bet you waste alot of money on little luxuries. But your just to cheap to spend $1 if it aint free I don't want it. Ok LOG OUT.

I haven't noticed any change in my sales since the removal of stipends for new accounts.

My sales are doing fine Dmitri. Over the last two weeks they have picked back up.

You can't assume that one event (lower sales for a week or two) is connected to the elimination of basic stipends.

Economics has a large lag time. Changes in policy take months to trickle through and have an effect.

The linden will not likely be stable at 250 as long as Linden Lab is undercutting everyone and selling lindens at 361.

The only scenario that could possibly cause that to happen is a huge number of basic accounts that buy lindens on LindeX, rather than getting the cheaper lindens from Linden Lab. This assumes an irrational consumer, so it's not a very sound economic theory.

This is incorrect. One of the basics of consumerism is NOW. If you sign up for a premium account you get 100L/$1, 44.4L/$1, or 13.9L/$1.(1000L signup bonus is the only L you get now) If you want L now for a purchase do any of those offers look better than lindex? LL DOES NOT SELL LINDENS FOR 361L/$1.

Where are you getting this information? According to the Membership Plans page, the signup bonus is L$1250 and the Weekly stipend is L$500/wk. And you get the same information if you go through the sign up process, as well as a L$250 bonus for giving payment information at sign up time.

If you want to consider the time value of money, it's $74.25, not $72, assuming you could have invested it at 7% compounded daily.

That makes it 350 instead of 361. So I guess you are right, if you consider the time value of money, you can't buy lindens from LL for 361, but you can buy them for 350.

I know that wasn't your point, and you do make a valid point about immediate demand exceeding the limited supply a stipend gives, but you have to realize, LL selling lindens for 361 or 350 or whatever number you want to use, that represents a downward pressure.

It's not going to hold the linden strongly to that number, but it's a pressure that causes the linden to tend toward that number. Lately that pressure has outstripped demand for lindens. If the Linden was back down around 250 that pressure would be even stronger.

It really depends. The number of new $L coming into SL has dropped with the elimination of dwell and the like, and the sinks are still there. And even in the past, the premium account wasn't in *that* high a demand.

So yes, it does inject $L at a lower than market value, but OTOH, the economy is expanding and there needs to be *some* mechanism to get new money into the game. And as was pointed out above, big purchases or impulse buys will still mean LindenX sales.

If you want to buy land for instance, it takes a *long* time to save up enough from a premium account to do that. Even for significant amounts of shopping $L500 a week isn't all that much.

If LL is careful, I believe that they can coutinue to release $L for less than the going rate through Premium stipends, and still keep the value of the $L at a decent level.

The exact difference is from time value is negotiable. I also think risk value factors in. How much higher rate of return would you want on your money to accept a 1 year bond with weekly coupons payable in $L over a more stable USD investment? I think time value and risk both factor in when determining the rate at which 1 year LL bonds no longer pressure the market.



While yes it does exert some pressure I'm not sure it's as significant as people think. In order to accurately assess the impact of the $72 rate you would have to know how many annual premium accounts are purchased that wouldn't be purchased if the conversion rate wasn't profitable. I know I've got 2 annual accounts that wouldn't factor in to that. My main and my alt would be renewed as annual accounts even if the linden was at 370 as long as I could profitably work the real estate business. Even at 100/yr an annual account would still be the way to go for someone with the money who needs the premium account for land rights not stipend. How many annual accounts do you think are out there that aren't required for land holding? And how does the volume from that compare to the volume from free accounts?(50L/$0US is actually the best rate from LL) The $L has 2 classes of users net buyers and net sellers. Net buyers spend more than they make. And usually buy at the point of need as evidenced by the spike in demand when building linden into the client was implimented. If you want to pay rent or buy that hair Lindex offers Lindens at say 330/$1 today 331/$1 and then you have the option of account upgrades. You need that money for rent now or want that hair now. The time value of 331/1 tomorrow is 0 same with the time value of stipends both stipends and a better rate tomorrow have no value because they don't fill the immediate need. Therefore the consumer will buy at 330/1 now regardless if there is a more profitable long term offer. Consumerism is rarely rational if looked at based on long term profitability for the buyer. You have to look at the mind set of the buyer and what course of action gets the most utils for a buyer desiring instant gratification. That was my point and is a tangent from where I was taking this paragraph. lol Anyways net sellers gain more lindens than they spend. While this class is more likely to look for the best time value there is heavy pressure on them to sell now. If you USD for tier today or you need USD to buy more lindens for resale today or you have RL bills coming up or you have to pay for your auction winnings ect a better rate on selling your L tomorrow also has 0 time value. I would contend that the size of demand for lindens for instant gratification and the size of requirement to sell to meet expenses so dwarfs other factors that desire and obligation are the 2 driving forces on lindex. When more people HAVE to sell lindens than people want to buy lindens the price goes down. When more people WANT to buy than people have to sell the price goes up. When LL was flooding the land market land barons had to sell to pay for their winnings. You could watch the impact of expenses exceeding desire drive down the lindex immediately following the close of dozens of auctions with no lag time. Right now not many people want to buy auction sims but tons of new users have no cash and want goods. Desire is outpacing expenses right now and has for a while so the Lindex is going up. Where stipends and other sources factor into the equation is not a function of their value based on what they cost to get. L's tend to drift to sellers and they tend to do so rapidly. The more L's sellers have chasing the same desire the more the price is driven down. Sources regardless of their cost have the impact of diluting the available US. L that must sell today/USD consumers want to spend = target lindex rate. IMO no other factors drive lindex as strongly.

As far as where I got my numbers when I signed up the premium bonus was $1000L I was unaware of the increase to $1250 until you pointed it out. However even reworking my numbers for that increase for instant gratification funds Lindex is still a more rational choice than premium accounts.

Damn I got windy lol

You are right, some would still be purchased.

The trouble is, over 361 or so, you lose people who just went premium for the cheap lindens.

Over 480 or so, you lose people who just want 512 meters of land.

When and if the linden climbs that high, you have significant pressure to downgrade and nearly no reason to upgrade. With the new more powerful groups, renting will be easier than ever, and cheaper than going premium for the lower tiers.

if you factor in time value and risk that point should occure well before 361. But what hasn't been established is that annual accounts are common enough to have any measurable impact on lindex.



Depends on whether people own because it's cheapest or because it's THEIRS. Reality aside LL has done an excellent job of creating an illusion of ownership and many people value that illusion more than they value the savings of getting land from other players. Heck I've met people who kept a MONTHLY account because it was convenient even though they didn't use the tier. Cheaper to buy on lindex but the utils from convenience outweighed the price. Consumer mentality is vastly more complex than "cheapest deal" and in light of restrictions on the number of premium accounts you can have I think consumer and need driven accounts far outweigh investment accounts.