L$ Deficit Hits L$504,000,000 Annualized!

Don't be fooled by Linden Lab Population numbers in which
accounts have multiple Alts, users who created an account and
logged in less than 10 times and never returned, and those who
may have once been active, but haven't connected in years...

Of the nearly 200,000 people LL claims, I'm pretty sure only
about 10-20% of that number is active. Thus making the money supply
a primary inflation creator...

I do not think you are reading that corectly.

I would not of paid a year in advance if they can cancel or change my contract without misconduct on my part. I think a court of law would agree.

Think about it, what is anything worth in Second Life if Linden Labs can take away property without compensation. The answer is NOTHING! Lindens have no value, land has no value and private sims have no value.

I only out about $100 American, what about Anshe Chung?

Thats what you get when you invest in a game. The linden value remains the same. The majority of SL, I imagine, -could care less- about devaluation of the exchange rate. I know I could care less.

Note: you will get no more responses until you can quote me that the seller rate would improve.

Pity there's not an equal deficit on freebie resellers. Note...I did NOT name names.

don't pay any attention to the troll behind the curtain

Hum lets see yes this is a very profitable game for some. Lets see i believe this was made to be a game to have fun and meet others show off creativity and have a 2nd life. I don't believe that it was intended to end up like it has as a 2nd job with some making 250k in 2 years and others making a ton of rl cash also. So what if theres a 3500000 l to 1 us dollar i'll still have fun i'm not here to make a job and feed my family thats what my 1st life is for. and my real life job. I'm here to party and get away from rl bs and enjoy a retreat into an alter ego/life. I believe the crying about the economy is going way to far into the real life politics of a real world and too many are greedy for making a living here. I need my 500 a week to have a way to buy stuff and not be a stripper or screw a bunch of perverts for a living in my second life. I get screwed enough in my 1st life and unless your a good programer or graphic arts person/animator you won't make much here unless you sell tons of porn or make a hot escort girl.

just an uneducated observation

At a flat rate it equals this. You're not counting anything else like sinks.

You do know you can't "press charges" for breech of contract, right? It would be a civil action, not a criminal one.

And damages in your case would be what? $50 USD? Good luck on that suit. You'd pay that much in travel expenses even if you live in California.

You want a class action? The laywers would make millions of dollars, and you'd get a check for $1 or so in the mail 2 years later.

I hate it when people threaten to sue needlessly.

So you think a company has the right to do anything to its customers? Actually I think fraud is a criminal action. Promising one thing and delivering another might fit this description. You think a action is ok as long as you can get away with it?

With atitudes like this no wonder my firm will soon be #1 in the world!

No I don't think that. Lets be realistic, however.

1. Linden Labs isn't going to drop paid-for premium stipends. They will phase them out as many have suggested.

2. You wouldn't really sue them anyway, even if they did.

It just bugs me when people start yelling about how they will sue all the time.

If they breach the agreement without a phaseout, then I will seek recompense. if they want to pay the remainder of my contracts stipends at once, that is acceptable. I will actively persue gathering enough players for a class action suit if needbe.

How do you know? You know nothing about me in real life. If Linden Labs drops stipend in the middle of my one year prepaid membership, yes I would seek redress. It is my hope they will honor their comitment and do the right thing thus avoiding such unpleasantness.

Will I renew my premium membership with no stipend, NO! It will just not be worth it.

Are you on a premium account or basic? You believe that the stipends are destroying the economy. Do you give your stipend back when it's given to you every week or are you just holding on to that cash happily and complaing about it here?

Personally I couldn't care less whether stipends stay or go but your habit of yelling about the things you feel are issues repeatedly doesn't seem to be helping anyone see your point. Seems to be having the opposite effect. As a business woman *cough* I would assume that you understand the concept of catering to your market, or in this case your audience. If what you're trying to sell them isn't sparking their interest, you try another tact.

Ranma / Jonas-

LL will very likely refund a prorated amount, for the unused months of an anual membership, if the reason for cancellation is due to a change in the terms of service imposed by them. They'd might do it anyway if you asked nicely at the time of cancellation. (they might also say that because you opted for the discounted anual rate that you're not eligible for a prorated refund, tough luck.)

You're being quite unreasonable if you expect more than that.

Can we please chill out about this so we can get back to freaking out about how the SecondLife Deficit is so zOMG! Terrible!

Are you joking? I cash L$ the SECOND I get them. It has served me well, as the value has done nothing but plummet and will continue to do so.

One could say that the system was designed to encourage you to do exactly that.

The more money passing through the Lindex, the more LL skims off the top, and what better way to encourage you to sell L$'s daily than to have tomorrow's value known to be lower?

Poor Jonas, unable to see the forest for all the trees...


Let me spell out an example with some details to better help you
comprehend the meaning of Money Supply Inflation.


Example
----------
Jonas buys L$1,000,000 of the LindenX because he
just wants to stare at his money. He is going to
shake his fist at the world and proclaim that he
is the Econ Guru of SL. So this little experiment
will cost Jonas US$3,225 at the current exchange
rate of L$310. And today, May 16, 2006 is the day
Jonas begins his experiment.


Fast forward the clock to May 16, 2007. The Linden Dollar
exchange rate is now L$500. Jonas still holds L$1,000,000
linden dollars. Jonas beats his chest and says, "I'm going
to show that ReserveBank who's the man around here."
So Jonas sells his L$1,000,000 on LindenX for L$500.
Jonas gawks when his transaction receipt says that all
he gets is US$2,000. Jonas stares and wonders where in
the heck his US$1,225 went.


Jonas looks around for his "majority" who could careless
about the devaluation of the Linden Dollar, only to find out
that he is the last man standing. Everybody else dumped
their Linden Dollars for USDs because they could see the
hand writting on the wall. --> A Falling Valuation, Linden Labs
continued arrogance of flooding the SL Economy with Linden
Dollars via Stipends, and the never ending flood of land, all
of which quickly educated 99% of SLers that holding Linden
Dollars was a stupid thing to do.


Now, everybody waits on the side lines with piles of USDs
just waiting for the Linden Policy to shift to one that curtails
the Stipends and New Land. Along with a increase in the sinks
to begin eating away at the massive supply of currency in the
market. All of these positive changes would begin to trigger a
buying spree of Linden Dollars. Pushing the valuation back up
and making hard working SLers feel proud of their paychecks
when they sell a widget.


Does that help Jonas? Repeat after me:

"When the Money Supply grows faster than GDP, you get Inflation."
"Anybody who uses population growth as a money supply trigger is an idiot"


Maybe this picture can ease the pain of this educational lesson.

and he pays a vanity tax for sitting on a stupid big wad of money in a system where HOLDING money clearly doesn't pay.

One could call it a STUPIDITY tax.

So.

Show me why SecondLife needs someone to buy a bunch of Lindens, SIT on them doing nothing with them... and then try to sell them a year later?

And show me why punishing someone for being stupid enough to try to manipulate the L$ in this way is bad for SecondLife?

Nice try... but the only person this example works out bad for is the idiot that "invested" in a fantasy currency that has a very clear and established downward trend.

L$ are meant to be spent, not held on to, buy what you need, cash out the surplus.

Funny you should mention such a phrase. Because a solution to the
Glut of Linden Dollars, is actually to create an in-game investment
vehicle which would be quoted in Linden Dollars. Causing people
to buy linden dollars, increasing the demand side of the equation,
and moving valuations back up.

Thus the need for an Equity/Bond Market in SL. Sir Jopsy owns
65,000m2 of land. You need some cash for a business venture,
so you issue a Bond against your land for 1/yr paying a yield of 6%.
Lets assume you get L$300,000 for your bond from SL investors.
You do whatever to create a Widget Shop with your money. Every
month for 12 months, you repay L$25000 on the Bond + L$1500
in interest. At the end of one year, the bond is repaid and the
investors netted themselves L$18,000.

Of course, if you default on a payment, your land is revoked,
given to the investors, and sold to recoup their investment.
Also during which time, you are prevented from selling the land
before the bond+interest is repaid.

I usually have at most 3k in my main account, shipping extra off to me and my sl wife's 'bank' alt. The 'bank' alt lets us enjoy what we have without going overboard on spending - as all we see is usually around 1k. But it also allows us to pull larger amounts when we need them or want them for something particular, be it a land parcel, 1 or 2k each for high stakes games, or todays pocket edition greedy. We have the lindens to get what we want. Its a comfortable second life.

While the rest of that sounds like it might be an interesting 'game' moneywise... I'm not going to do anything that puts my land in jeapordy. If I need in L$ beyond what I can scrounge up by selling/commision-work or offloading a parcel, then I buy them at the current rate.

If it *REALLY* poses a threat to the community and SecondLife as a "platform" I want to understand how and why. So far I've just seen bad parallels made to real life (where I agree, deficits with national governments can be bad things. Particularly, if MY salary isn't keeping up with inflation and taxation).

Try again? Please... explain to me why "glut of Lindens Dollars" (as you call it) is ultimately bad for SecondLife.

I am sure, someone in one of the hundreds of other threads suggested the obvious solution as it is. If the currency is devluaing against the dollar, then increase your prices. If you think, selling an item at 1$ each is fair, then set your L$ price as appropriate.

Real life eonomies go through currency fluctuations and inflation is a regular part of most economies, so why not here?

Well, part of the perceived problem is that the fluctuation is ever downward (or upward depending on how you look at it).

I'm just kinda curious, there's a lot of:

"Something must be done immediately!" (by non-ostEriches)

I'm just asking them to paint a picture of this inevitable and horrible financial doom that we're on a collision course with... such that killing stipends is our only hope for survival.

Until then, I'm not buying it. Even with tomorrow's cheaper L$'s.

Once again you completely missed my point. If you truly believe that the stipends are the big problem as you claim and you really are advocating that everyone demand they stop... then why are you still accepting yours? If you believe what you say, shouldn't you be giving it back.. (ie: upload some random texture 50 times every tuesday to give back the 500) and then recomending everyone who agrees with you on the issue should do the same thing over and over until the Lindens finally hear you?

Again I'll state, I personally don't get a stipend, never needed one and don't care.

BUT, you do care so, give it back. If you believe the stipends are a threat to the economy, utilize one of the L$ sinks and dump em.

Or would that just be much too logical and not nearly as much fun as just screaming about it?

At any given moment doom is when the linden reaches 10% lower than it is.

("Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today". I learnt more about economics reading Alice Through the Looking Glass than I do here.... but this is fun!)