Pay $72, get $86...?

First, I'm sorry if this topic has been discussed X times before, but I am new on the board and just can't make these numbers make sense:



As a full year SL premium membership fee, you pay USD$72, right?

As a full year SL premium member, you recieve a L$ 500 weekly allowance, right?

52 weeks in a full year means 52*500= L$ 26000.

With today's exchange rate (299,86), that equals USD$86,71




So my point is.... How the h*ll can you get $14,71 a year for doing nothing!?

What is the catch?

They're hoping you'll be sucked in and end up spending more than that on tier fees etc.

Plus, there's Lindex fees to be considered.

Yes, plus it would be a risky investment strategy, because that stipend could be reduced or eliminated in the future. Especially if a lot of people seem to be doing it.

Ok..

What are the Lindex Fee's, and how big are they?

The real reason most people go premium is to be able to own land. You do get to own 512m for free with a premium account but LL bets that you will end up wanting more land and thus end up in a monthly tier bracket. So, the stipend is part of the lure, along with the free 512m, to get you addicted to owning land and wanting more.

Keep in mind also the system was set up well before the $L had any dollar value. The GOM and Lindex are relatively new concepts. Also, the stipends are printed as needed essentually, it costs LL almost nothing to generate them.

How are GOM and LindenX new concepts? GOM the former and LindenX the Present are nothing more than trading platforms being used by those looking to sell L$ for something and those with US$ looking to buy L$. If not for GOM/LindenX, this whole trading pit would be taking place on eBay. Just not with the same level of efficiency.

Free Markets are not a new concept.

Fee is 3.5%, plus USD$1 per PayPal withdrawal. Leaves you with US82 if the current exchange rate stays. But the rate changes, so it is not a safe bet to invest USD72. At the current rate you would have to register 250 alts, and pay 18,000 to have a chance at maybe netting a profit of 2,5K in a year. I'd rather put my money on Google shares.

plus, you need to log in atleast once a week to get the stipend for that week.

nope. premiums get stipend regardless if they log in.

While it's definately not worth the risk, compared to speculation in more regulated RL currency/capital markets, I still find it fascinating that you can actually get some amount of "real" money for nothing, by entering a premium membership.

Linden Labs is creating those $L that they give as stipends out of thin air. Linden Labs doesn't buy them on the Lindex and redistribute them, they push a button and voila, your account goes up by $L500. So Linden Labs loses nothing at all when you sell those $L to another player on Lindex. In fact, Linden Labs takes a cut of the purchase, charges you real $US to send you a check or credit your PayPal account. LL makes quite a bit of money off giving out those imaginary $L.

Ummm... yeah. Recent in relation to Second Life... SL was started with the Linden as nothing more than monopoly money with no value. Trading Lindens for real money was in fact against the TOS when I started. You will sound less clueless if you assume the person you are responding to isn't an idiot.

Khamon is annual because he can carry tier at the equivalent cost of $6US/mo rather than $10US.

If the Shoe Fits....It doesn't matter what is and isn't against the TOS, if its not being enforced it doesn't matter. You can say that back in the old days, trading of L$ was against TOS, but if LL didn't employ investigators to inquire why John Doe received a huge block of cash from Jane Doe, its nothing more than words on paper.

And as for a history lesson, GOM was trading L$ as far back as Jan. 2004, only a few months after SL got started. And they didn't get shut down. There goes your TOS Theory. There is no real basis to claim that GOM/LindenX is a new concept. Here is an old article blurb just to prove the point. Do your homework or a shoe with a certain label might fit.

Source: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/games/1,61999-1.html

Virtual Cash Breeds Real Greed
By Daniel Terdiman Daniel Terdiman
2004-01-23 14:32:00.0

Kenneth Michael Merrill is perhaps the first of a new kind of currency speculator. He's using a recent discovery of his, the Gaming Open Market, to profit by trading money that can't be used in the real world.

The Gaming Open Market, or GOM, is a recently launched website that serves as a currency exchange of sorts. But it's not enabling the buying and selling of different countries' money. Instead, it lets players of a group of online games -- including Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Second Life, The Sims Online, There and others -- traffic in the currencies of those virtual worlds, trading game money for U.S. dollars or, soon, even allowing players to trade across games.

You wins da internets, congadulations

It's funny...
The day after I started this thread, LL posts a statement saying that weekly Premium stipends will drop from L$500 to L$400. I guess now, the numbers will make more sense.

L$400 * 52 weeks = L$20800, which equals USD$69,33 at an exchange rate of 300/1.
In other words, yearly stipends will amount to less than the full year premium fee of USD$72.

There's no catch. The thing that most people assume is that they're paying $72 to LL for the account and getting $86 in return from LL.

In reality the $86 comes from the other LindeX users that you sold your L$ to. You're not exactly doing nothing, you're investing $72 in the hope that other users want to buy the L$ from you.
Alternatively you could spend $86 on LindeX and get a further L$26,000. There's nothing magical going on.

Yeah, actually, you're not likely to make money, even with the previous $L500 stipend: the real catch is that the $L is constantly inflating. when I got my premium membership last December, a $L was worth more than 20% more than it is now.

You tell'm Chase... These folks can't understand the word Inflation. They think, the more money LL prints and hands out for free, the better the L$'s valuation will be... I just Laugh...

"These folks" refering to the straw men RBD habitually argues with while ignoring anything actually said by anyone in a thread...

Who ignores? Me? Naw, I respond to all who dare oppose me...


Its the hypsters that want you to believe the L$ is going up, that when confronted with the facts seem to disappear and are never seen again... I'm out morning, noon, and night with my gloves on. Ready for a brawl...

That's because you represent a - thankfully small - minority of SL players.

Most of us hurt when we get less L$ for the US$, and we make up the majority of the playerbase.

It's the currency traders and land barons that are affecting the L$ value far more than our little stipend. I just wish LL would do something to hurt them for a change instead of those who keep SL in its proper perspective and play for fun.

Lewis

That would be, oh, six months after sl left beta which it was in for quite a while. The sl world was quite a different place prior to Dec 2003.

You are not looking at this corectly. Linden Labs gets use of the money for the entire year and they also save by not processing 11 payments.