A solution to the anti-stipend whiners?

Wow, that post is spectacularly ignorant.

First, a graduated income tax, which I recommended, would take 75% of the money away from the rich. $195 a month is nothing if you are making $2000, the land tier system helps the rich. A graduated income tax helps small businesses at the expense of the land barons and freeloaders. Did you read or understand a word I said?

Second, as I clearly stated, I offered the choice between a creative, community-orientated economy and a freemarket. That is, if people want to junk the economy side of SL, by all means do so. Just stop pretending handing out cash to everyone every week to do nothing is a sensible way to run an economy.

By the way, if you use SL for "fun" then I have to question your quality of life in the Real world. Frankly I think it is a bit sad if you have get your enjoyment out of life from a video game.

Last time I checked, "fun" was the entire point of a video game. So much for claiming other peoples posts are:



And I thought this thread would be fun... shows how wrong I was.

Of course it's a sensible way to run an economy. Just about every government in the world does it.

"But that's to pay for food and stuff without which people would die." And the stipends are to pay for a minimum level of entertainment without which people would leave. Ok, there's a choice aspect in there but it's still the truth of the situation.

"The land tier system helps the rich"? Umm, you don't need an island to sell stuff. It doesn't even necessarily help you sell.

If L$ taxed the richest content creators the only result would be that they'd cash out their L$ reserves creating a massive market flood and thus inflation which would hurt middle earners even more. You don't have to be a multinational to play the money market in SL.

You know.. if they scrapped the Linden Labs selling and buying Linden dollars then the only 'new' money to the system would be stipends,

The only 'dissapearing' money would be accounts going inactive.

Sound smore sensible than making the game less attractive to anyone wanting premium..and you can sell L$ through third party registers.

Sounds FAR more sensible than cutting stipends as the money stays -inside- the system.

When you buy from LL they don't create more currency. It's a currency exchange, just like the third-party ones.

Unless I'm really missing something here.

The way I understood it you can buy Linden $ at a fixed rate... but sell at a varied, changing one.

It sound sto me like the selling out is trying to adjust for cash volume while the buying in is unlimited.

Nope, you buy and sell at a variable rate, and it is a true market not an unlimited mint. If you buy Lindens, you are buying them from another player who is getting USD for it.

I'm always thoughts $9.95 was cheap for an MMO, and never had a problem throwing in another $10 per month to buy cool stuff and have the kinds of fun that isn't available in WoW.

20c a week for acting as an "extra" so that folks like us who pay for our Lindens can show of our neat stuff? That's way below actors guild rates.

I don't think they're paid enough.

There's a big difference in people asking for stipends to be removed from premium accounts versus free accounts.

Regards,

-Flip

thats one of the funniest things i've ever read on this forum.

I agree with Flipper.. while premium players pay for the benefits, the merits of a stipend to free player sis noticably less. Yes, they add to the market.. but 50L doesn't go far (except at yadnis)

A suggestion might be a limited time for basic account stipend.. to be fair maybe 2 months (8 weeks). That should be enough time to decide if premium is worth it or not.

The "free" accounts add flavor to SL. What would SL be with a lot fewer residents? The L$50 a week is not a lot at all.

THe very residents that are crying about handouts would cry even harder when these "free" accounts disapear and the amount of Lindens they recieve for dwell time disapears.

Exactly Ranma.. i would only recommend cutting the stipend to basic members as a -last- resort.

Tax weekly income first...perhaps shave money there. Or 'buy back' linden dollars at a higher cost.. youll find out which merchants are trying to make a rl profit as well by doing this. those not 'cashing out' will keep their prices level- forcing those rising prices to match the higher 'sell' rate business in favor of thsoe keeping the cash in world.

In other words..

>> Merchant A sells the same thing as Merchant B with the same cost.

>> 'Sell' price goes up.

>> Merchant A raises prices so he can cash out the same amount of rl money.

>> Merchant B stays level, not concerned about rl money as much, they truly enjoy creating.

>> Merchant A will lose business, Merchant B will gain it.

Hows that for capitolism and those who want inflation checked?

I think we should be careful on what we say and not let ourselves get cought up in the heat of discussion.

Many people in SL are physicaly impaired and / or unable to socialise through any other means. It's kinda of a slap down to argue that someone who gets enjoyment through SL is living a sad life.

Besides. Sometimes I enjoy myself playing Halo online, or Grand Theft Auto San Andreas... and I live a very happy and healthy life - mind you.

Just "kinda"?

Actually, I have to worry about somebody who logs into SL even though they don't get any enjoyment out of it. That seems the most bizarre thing to me. What is that, self-hatred?

I couldn't agree more Marker! There are many, many people in SL for whom their ability to interact/function in RL is extremely limited, myself included. Is it sad that I get my enjoyment from SL, where my avatar is always well, doesn't feel pain and hell, can even fly? I would love to get the same enjoyment from RL, but I can't. I've lost count of the people I've met in SL in a similar situation.
The real truth is, SL is different things to different people... I think it is perfectly reasonable for some people to view SL purely as entertainment, and we need those people in the economy. I work hard in SL, I pay a fair bit of tier, I don't rely on the stipend for income... but I don't begrudge at all those who do, and are just here for some fun.

this post is spectacularly ignorant.

Let's see, you look down upon people who don't work (freeloaders), people who do work (if they make money seling land), and people who have "fun" in SL. I'm guessing you are a small business owner. Is that "small" as in not successful?

Talk about sad.

[/b]

That's me for one. I have Parkinson's which is bad enough to class me as permanently unfit to work. In between doses of medication, I have great difficulty using a mouse/keyboard which doesn't stop me going online and trying to run a SL business even when I effectively can't type!!

Which is, incidentally, why my responses are sometime very terse in style (less typoing ) )

Basically I don't want to be tied down to watching endless repeats on TV, I need to *do* something creative. Finding SL was a breath of fresh air to me and the business I'm trying to get moving is more than worth the current RL cost of keeping it going, to me.

Ok, so what happens If LL change the parameters? I recognised that might happen from day 1. If I can't adapt profitably, then I'll close down and try something else.

Whatever happens it won't stop me from enjoying the experience.

Phoe

P.s anyone got a job as a cocktail shaker? )))

If you apply a weekly income tax, everyone who can (landlords mostly) will instantly switch to PayPal for direct payments, and others may investigate a new currency (managed in a simular way to the Gold used in internal RPGs, or Bravo Bravo's casino reward points). Or people will use scripted vendors that split sales between their 5 alt accounts. That also wouldn't help the problem that some of the big content and land barons have enough L$ in their accounts to trash the economy singlehandedly if they were all sold at once.

And "buying back at a higher cost" - LL don't buy back L$; the ones sold on LindeX are sold to other players. Increasing the cost is the "inflation" which you're mentioning.



It would be nice to have this luxury, but unfortunately, there's an intimite tie between RL money and getting to enjoy creating. It's called tier.

Person B truly enjoys creating, but doesn't optimise their business model. As a result, they don't make as much money as they could do, so they wind up stuck putting object in their shop on a 4096, if they had optimised their business and kept their prices in place, they could have pulled off a Chaos (ie, an entire themed sim funded by their shop in one corner). As a result, all of SL loses out on the creativity person B could have provided.

Maybe there aren't enough moments of superiority to be found elsewhere?

If one uses SL purely for money-making purposes, I have to question their "capitalistic" wisdom. Build a business on inventory you don't own, in stores that don't belong to you, your entire ediface on a platform that could disappear at a moments notice. Virtual wealth, virtual inventory - gone! No questions asked, no recourse available. If you are a real capitalist, you are in a delusional world if you think you are practicing it in SL.

Second Life is a leisure activity. Why on earth would you be here if it weren't for enjoyment? To make money? Unless you're exporting your services out of SL, your customers are here doing what? Having fun and enjoying themselves.

I think you said it best

Bigger isn't always better. Perhaps they enjoy the smaller shop without the need for a large tier payment each month? Ooops no, silly me, we ALL want to pay tier ona whole sim. Visiting their shop, smaller or not, is an available option to you. We -don't- lose out on their creativity.

not only that but i believe the largest earning of anyone in SL so far was somewhere in the region of $200,000 per anum? hardly up there in the realms of the forbes top 100 is it. there are hotdog stall owners making more.

SL Premium members pay money each month to Linden Labs for a package of services including: access to the SL grid, the ability to own land in SL, 512m2 of tier, and 500L a week in stipend.

How you get "welfare receipient" out of someone paying money for a service is beyond me.