Our focus should now be on SINKS not STIPENDS.

IMHO, we are wasting our energies in further pursuing an elimination or reduction to premium stipends. Please understand that I am not necessarily against the elimination of premium stipends ... if it would guarantee a net overall positive effect on our economy and the future overall health of SL. But I am not convinced that it will.

Money flowing into an economy is not, in and by itself, necessarily a bad thing. As a matter of fact, money flowing into an economy is not only good, but it is necessary to sustain a growing economy. So our current problem is not so much LL's ability to add cashflow to the economy, but their inability to remove it in the form of sinks.

Think about it for a minute. How many sinks do we have in SL today? By all accounts, our sinks are paltry in number. LL simply has not devoted their attention to implementing creative ways of removing cashflow from the economy in any measureable way. Again, our problem is that the outflow of cash from the economy, in the form of sinks, are not offsetting the inflow of cash into the economy, in the form of stipends.

Simply put, we need more sinks. Now!

LL simply needs to devote some of their time and talent into creating innovative and effective sinks immediately!

I mean, what would be more indicative of a need for sinks than the recent and increasing movement by many of our residents to BURN THEIR STIPENDS?

And though I believe that their cause is borne of good intent, it is a cause doomed to fail. Why? Because the removal of premium stipends is, for all intents and purposes, wrought with unknown consequences. It is, to say the least, a very precarious maneuver that can have a negative impact on LL's current and future bottom line profit, have a potentially alienating effect on the psychy of our community, the income provided to our content creators in-world could decrease, and it could ultimately stagnate, if not outright curtail, a growing economy and the future growth of SL.

In short, it is now time to turn our attention away from stipends, and toward the creation of innovative and creative sinks that will effectively remove the cashflow from our economy. In so doing, not only will the overall health of the SL economy improve, but so will the relations scarred by this bitter anti/pro stipend debate.

Your ideas for sink suggestions to LL in this thread would be most appreciated. Thank you.

The ONLY problem I have with more sinks at this time is that freebies can still play for completely free right now (just buy free content, etc), and I am afraid that if sinks are implemented, they may be ones that are required to enjoy the game (otherwise making things very difficult and frustrating), and would require free accounts to go spend money on Lindex if their $50L stippend won't cover the cost of sinks. Yes, I want free accounts to still go and spend money on Lindex, but I would rather them do it for things they can enjoy, like content, clothing, animation, rent, etc, not for stuff just to be able to survive, move around, or whatever. Including sinks could also have the adverse effects of people deciding to, say, spend their money on a LL sink to be able to teleport to places, rather than spend their money to support someone who spent time to build/create something intersting. Other than that, you do have a good point. I just hope someone can come up with viable ideas on how to implement this.

A small and vocal minority of residents whose income from other sources means they don't need the stipend anyway and stand to benefit financially were the stipend to be ended proves nothing.

However you put it, increasing sinks is no better or different than removing stipends, possibly worse. Whilst a basic resident for example can still enjoy SL without a stipend if they don't buy anything, if charges were to be introduced for basic functionality such as TP'ing or building you've just removed the only reason for staying.

Personally, when I took out a years subscription to LL for premium membership I saw that as payment to use their product and basic functionality was as much a part of that as the stipend in the package. Being charged just for creating something or travelling outside my sim would become very tiresome, very quickly for me. So no. No more sinks thankyou.

I understand your concerns Rasah, but the operative words in my post were "innovative and creative" sinks to effectively remove cashflow.

This means the implementation of sinks that would be introduced in the form of services to those that have the linden to spend, and not so much on the necessities of life in SL that would otherwise impact newbies or residents of lower income.

For instance...

How many business owners/merchant would pay a fee to be able to track the growth of their business via a webpage in which they could input pertinent data, such as specifc dates or date ranges, and be able to see graphical depictions and summaries of their business' financial trends?

This would be a sink that would be geared mostly to the wealthier spectrum of our residents, and I would bet many would pay a healthy sum of linden for this type of info.

This is what I mean by creative and innovative sinks.

Can you think of any others?

Anything that interferes with enjoyment is bad for Second Life. Sheesh.

I really need to go out and make an Obvious Man costume.

I see some people would rather whine and complain, than offer solutions to problems.

Please see post #4 CJ and Barbarra. This is not the time to be close minded. Open up your mind, think outside the box, and offer solutions to problems.

Or would you rather continue whining and complaining?

I agree that providing sinks is the second strand of economic DNA. The key is to do it in as clever and non-invasive ways as possible. Personally, I am a big fan of voluntary taxation.

A few months ago I posed this suggestion to LL and still think it would be a fantastic start:

The concept is to charge a nominal fee for listing an event. Something in the range of 10 Lindens per listing could amount to a decent size cumulative sink without causing anyone financial impact. It meets the voluntary criteria by having it only cost it if you wanted to list an event and honestly most money balls, dance pads, and other party draw items issue more than 10 Lindens in a matter of a few minutes so it isn’t something that would deter listing events.

I’m sure with as many truly creative people as we have in SL there are many other ideas that would allow money to drop out of the economy through non-painful and well thought out processes.

~Tao

Thank you for your refreshingly positive post and demeanor

Tose are good ideas, and as I said, I am neither innovative, nor creative

I would be happy it LL would reduce the premium stipend to a level where it isn't profitable to create as many alts as you can afford for the purpose of buying L$ at an exchange rate of L$361/1. A L$415 stipend would effectively reduce the exchange rate to L$300/1 and eliminate the problem for the current exchange rate. This could be done for all future premium accounts like was done for all future basic accounts. If LL was interested in stabilizing the exchange rate at L$250/1 then a further reduction of all future premiun accounts to a weekly stipend of L$350 would do that.

The issue with this Svar, is that because the economy is constantly changing, your proposal would require the constant adjustments and tinkering to stipend distribution to correspond with the fluctuating economy.

It is not a bad idea. It would simply require the understanding by all of our residents that their weekly stipend would fluctuate depending on economic trends.

How the general population would receive this I don't know.

I would presume not very well.

But a good suggestion nonetheless

Of course not since your stipend would be effected. But you were more than happy to rant to get rid of others and destroy the majority of content creators' businesses. This thread of your's is PROOF of what I said all along. This was nothing but a greed driven movement on your part adn the part of the others involved in the hopes to forcing ppl to buy your L's....not happenning. When I can no longer support my shop then I will be removing ALL content I created and leaving SL. But I would ROT in my grave before giving you any money. If you are so benevolent then why not join the movement of ppl giving back thier stipend?

and I am very convinced that this ending of basic stipends has removed 80% of the customer base of content creators in SL

I only suggest this if LL wants to attempt control of the exchange rate near some fixed point. Once the exchange rate exceeds L$361/1 this problem goes away anyway.

Dmitri, basic stipends had to go. There is no reason for LL to be paying residents to come to SL. They are already letting you log into SL for FREE! Please stop it with your obsession with this free fifteen cent handout. For a grown man, your obsession with fifteen cents is bordering on the outrageously ridiculous already.

And I am not necessarily against the elimination of MY premium stipends. I would be fine with the decision by LL if they were to eliminate them. But I understand the pitfalls if this were to happen. Furthermore, unlike basic stipends, people receiving premium stipends deserve their stipends. They are paying customers. As such, they should receive something greater for their subscription fee than basic members are receiving. And I am afraid that a 512 piece of land is not enough.

Now if they were to eliminate free memberships, then the elimination of stipends would be worth the price because it would be necessary in order to access SL.

Should we instead be focusing our attention on the elimination of the free membership account offer?

Maybe that would soothe your bitterness a bit

Refusal to accept your ideas is not whining and complaining. It merely means they think it is a bad idea (as do I). I am NOT obligated to offer solutions to what I do not see as a problem, merely to have an opinion.

Leave well enough alone, your kind already managed to remove stipends for new basics (and once they burn their starting whatever, most will go rather than pay RL cash...in most games online, that is perceived as 'cheating' and in many is bannable...only LL encourages it. We stand to lose a lot of new players from that one, IMO.

You think my idea to introduce sinks into the economy that would only affect those who can afford it, as oposed to the elimination of premium stipends, a bad idea?

Geez, some people simply can not be satisfied.

I have to agree with you. They touch the premium stipend and I immediately downtier to basic. And will linden Labs benefit from losing my tier? Hell no, not directly. I make enough off my handfull of little stores to rent land. So LL loses my tier and DOESN'T get any Lindex commissions from sales to me. Seems like a lose-lose proposition for LL if enough people tier down and rent without using Lindex.

This whole forum amuses me...all the high end Linden sellers looking for ways to salvage their investment on the backs of the smaller content creators and the generic players. They already reduced the market to newbies by taking away stipend from new basics (Why should they bother signing up or stay signed up once the money is gone?), now they are going after the rest of us.

I have the perfect sink! Windfall profits taxes on the wealthy folks, since they have the most lindens and their dumping on the Lindex is lowering value! Wait, that will never fly, its too fair to go after the CAUSES of the problems.

Where will you get the $L to pay for your rent btw?

All you do is attack anyone that doesn't nod yes with you like one of those little bobblehead deals.

Yes I can be satisfied. Am satisfied right now...I prefer the status quo. The only people getting hurt are the big money folks due to devaluation. Not my problem they took a game and tried to make RL money from it.

But if you must have a sink, how about windfall profits tax on the rich...say 250K + Lindens...tax them monthly! Or if they sell more than 50K on the lindex...quadruple the commissions or add a surcharge of 25%. The people dumping tons of lindens 'cause the value is going down' are only driving it further down, but don't care as long as they get their $US. Tax them for screwing up the economy.

I am all for leaving well enough alone. No need to penalize the vast majority of the players because some big names made bad business decisions.

I have five or six small stores. I make enough to pay rent on the stores and on land. In the last three weeks, I made enough to pay rent on the two places I rent for 2 months each. Sure, I am broke now, but if folks like Cheyenne get their way, I'll be even worse for players like me and all the better for players like them.

If the economy just HAS to be balanced, I prefer it to be fairly...not just on the backs of the small premium and basic players. Why don't the big name content creators and land barons step up to the plate and make some painful sacrifices (like the new basics INVOLUNTARILY did) since long run, it will benefit them the most?

You claim to disagree with me, yet fail to realize that my suggestion actually simpathizes with your position.

Do you even read before you post?

Can't track how much people have. I have $100L in my account right now (just enough to burn tonight at 9pm), but my bank account holds over $200k. How will LL track that? However, I wouldn't mind the idea of removing $500L stippends from people who own more than $250k. I doubt they will notice the loss compared to the business profits, anyway. Problem is, most of the people who are hurting by the $L value drop are not ones who have $250kL or more, it's the people who have $0l despite paying $100USD or more a month for their land, and making back just $100USD worth of L a month on their business sales. I.E. people who are well off with lots of $L in their pockets are not the ones bitching about stippends. People who barely make enough to cover their land tier, and people who are up to $10,000USD in the hole due to large purchases/investments in the game who are worried about whether they'll actually be able to make that money back are the ones complaining.

I agree that SOMEONE needs to give something up her. Your rent will only be covered by your business until the people you are renting from raise their prices to reflect the drop in $L, which they no doubt convert to $US to pay their tier. It's also already quite unfair that the $500l stippend people have paid for is worth much less now than it used to just a year ago.

yes I do. I prefer it left as is, no changes at all, period.

You see, if it is left as-is, perhaps some of the big names causing the problems will lose their shirts and leave since its no longer 'profitable'. A world not so capitalistic, without the Anshe-style land barons and content-moguls would be a much better place, with more room for the smaller content makers and casual players. I say let nature take its course....

However, since you wanted ideas, I offered a couple along similar lines, only more draconian. Though they have about as much chance of flying in this wealth-dominated forum as a lead balloon.

Maklin, I respect your frustration. Please realize that not everyone who is for a balanced money supply (either through limiting stipends, creating more sinks, or both), is a "big money" person in SL.

I've said this before and I guess I need to say it again. This is not a black and white, us against them issue. There are more than two sides to this issue.

I am a newly starting out content creator. My shop opens in 2-3 weeks. I have not made a single Linden. In fact, I have spent many Linden's uploading textures and my designs. I've spent even more hiring other content creators to do work that I cannot.

Why do I care about the economy? Because if it continues to decline, the Lindens I eventually earn will not be sufficient to pay my tier and other operating cost. If so, I will close shop. Others are already talking about doing just that.

Now, I agree with your point about the debate over whether this is a game, a platform for business, or both. That IS a real issue--an issue that is causing much consternation.

LL has said that they intend for the SL platform to offer real economic value (read this LL blog post: http://secondlife.blogs.com/change/2006/05/announcing_seco.html). Perhaps they need to be more forth coming to the residents so that this issue is laid to rest--one way or the other.