Fix the Linden By Allowing Us to Pay Tier in $L

If reducing the amount of money in the system is the answer, why not let land owners pay tier in $L? LL then cashes out that amount and wham, less money in the system. The tier fees would be based on the current exchange rate, and LL could even charge the standard fee. For my small tier payment of $US25 it would be the equivalent of reducing over two years worth of a single basic subscriber's stipend. Assuming he or she logged on every week. And that's just in a single month.

This way there are no new fees and nobody loses anything. It seems so obvious, there must be something big I'm missing.

you can do this I believe but you need to do the selling part, then if you leave the balance in your account it can be used towards tier.

you're missing how LL would look representing their business to investors while holding play money.

What is the difference between you cashing your L$ on LindeX to pay your tier, and LL doing it? Either way there will be a flood of L$ being placed for sale on a regular basis.

I can see where you are coming from as far as getting Lindens out of circualtion. However either way someone will have to cash those Lindens out (you, me or Linden Labs) since the US economy does not take Lindens in exchange for goods and services.

A big part of the revenue Linden Labs generates to operate their company and keep SL up and running for you and me comes from these Land tier fees. And since Lindens are generally purchased from other residents selling there Lindens on the exchange they really have no value in $USD until they are sold again in the SL market to buyers who are willing to convert $USD into Lindens for there own purpose.

So for linden Labs to keep generating that very important Revenue they would absolutely have to sell the lindens and convert them into $USD to generate revenue. And even if they did do it that way, it would be impossible for them to calculate how many lindens we would have to pay each month to cover our tier fee due to the fluctuating price of Lindens. I can go on and on about this as to why and how but I think you should be able to get my point here without any further explanation.

This is correct, you can pay your tier using Lindens, all you have to do is convert them to $ first.

This doesn't destroy L$ though. It merely re-circulates them.

Here's another thread on this topic. The idea has been around as long as I've been in SL. The big problem is that if you pay your tier in $L, then LL gets no money and goes bankrupt.

But some compromise is possible. If implemented in a limited way, it could probably help.

Your economic theory seems to be flawed. I'm not sure if it is your mistake, or if it is my mistake in misunderstanding what you're trying to get at here. I'll attempt to explain why this doesn't make sense in either of the above scenerios though. LL taking L$ from me and then selling it on LindeX (I hope I'm understanding correctly that this is what you mean when you say "LL then cashes out that amount and wham"?) does not reduce the currency float. Let me illustrate this.

We'll start with you and me being the only two members of SL, and each of us posessing L$10. This makes the current currency float L$20. Now, I use all of my L$10 to pay my tier to LL, who subsequently "cashes out that amount and wham" on LindeX. Since we're the only two members of SL in my scenerio, you buy it. I now have L$0, you now have L$20, and LL now has however much USD you felt L$10 was worth.

Do you see how this changes absolutely nothing with respect to the goal of having "less money in the system"? At the end of this exersise the currency float is STILL L$20. There has been NO net change to the amount of currency in circulation. The only change is to the current holders of the currency. Thus, there is NO net change in the "value" of the currency. I might as well "cash that amount out and wham" myself. It only introduces hassle for LL to have to "cash that amount out and wham" in my place.

Now, if LL were willing to PASS ON THE USD REVENUE associated with my tier, take my L$ and simply delete it, rather than selling it to recover the lost USD revenue of taking tier in L$, this would be useful. LL is a business though, and at the end of the day the purpose of their existance is to make money. With this in mind, it doesn't seem likely that they'd pass on a portion of their ABSOLUTELY MOST CRITICAL revenue stream (tier) in order to boost the value of L$. I realize that they do some strange things from time to time, but I'd file this one under "HIGHLY unlikely".

Thanks Shaun, your explanation was point on. I missed completely the fact that when you sell your $L, you're selling them to another resident and they don't really leave SL. I knew it was too easy a fix to work, after all, wouldn't somebody with a bit more economic sense than me have come up with the idea long before this. LOL.