About the state of SL's economic future?

Currently, LL's monetary policies mirror and encourage a socialist and welfare dependant economic infrastructure. To promote a healthier economy we will need to somehow stray away from this economic model.

LL has started going in the right direction by eliminating DI, but they need to do much more. The current pace in which theyre addressing this issue needs to be accelerated considerably.

A few suggestions might be;

* Eliminating the $L50 stipend for basic - It may just be $L50 for each account, but thousands of these free accounts awarding free stipends add up. Giving away free money, however minimal, just doesnt make sense.

* Eliminating Dwell - stop providing welfare for landowners. Allow them to charge an entry fee for access to entertaining content such as events, gatherings, and clubs. Even if the entry fee were just $L1, they would quickly recover the dwell they currently get, and far more in many instances. This in-turn would encourage land owners to develop worthy events and appealing/innovative property content.

* Decrease the referral award for basic accounts to $L500 from the current $L1000. Basic accounts are good to an extent but referral fees should be made to appear overwhelmingly superior for premium accounts so as to encourage the purchase of premium accounts thereby decreasing the potential for alt farming.

* Introduce more sinks. P2P is an example of a wonderful sink if it would have been introduced as such, and an alternative to the old telehub manner of travel. Though arguable, it also may have saved LL from having to offer the telehub buy-back which has since, at least for the short-term, further eroded SL's economy.

Another example for a sink might be increasing single upload fees from $L10 to $L25 with a built in bulk upload fee option that would reduce the fee accordingly with an increase of uploads. I.E.,
1 upload = $L25
5 uploads = $L100
10 uploads = $L150
20 uploads = $L200 etc.

These are just a few suggestions, but I am certain that with all of the talented residents comprising the SL community, we should be able to come up with many more.

While it is true that we many not have reached a critical point in regard to this matter, IMHO, the time is now for LL to take a proactive approach in addressing this matter. LL could start by opening it up to the community to share and exchange ideas. The implementation of some of these ideas should then become a priority.

There is no reason to procrastinate given all of the economic signs displaying a strong and steady downward trend in the linden. For the past few months it has been obvious to all that supply has relentlessly overwhelmed demand with no sight of even the slightest rebound.

Should we continue to simply watch and wait for the inevitable?

Having to explicitly pay to enter almost any parcel sounds like a horrible idea to me. I'm all for adding new sinks, but not ones that make basic exploring a major hassle.

Upping the fees/reducing the rewards would work too, but that's not very imaginative.

I would rather see more Lindon owned services. Perhaps for-pay areas where restrictions (that are in there to prevent abuses on the regular grid) in the SL scripting system could be removed to make combat sims more realistic?

That would probably be a lot more work than it's worth though. The most obvious solution would be to have LL buy back L$ off of the exchange to curb the inflationary pressures of the weekly allowance and whatnot. That would probably require an increase in the premium account fees to cover the difference though--it wouldn't be able to pay for itself anymore. Still, I get the impression that the majority of LLs income comes from bulk land sales and tier payments.

I am in total disagreement with this. We need more resident run services, LL has to give us the tools to enable that.



Others have mentioned this idea. Seems kind of silly for a company who prints the fake money, to buy it back for real money. Plus, this doesn't change anything, it just delays it.

I was thinking of offering services that for one reason or another aren't a good idea to give to regular people. Perhaps stuff that's too easy to grief other people with or something.

Actually, as the amount of available L$ dropped, the value of the L$ would go back up. It would be a constant effort though, and probably very expensive, which is why they would need to up the fees on the premium accounts to compensate. Getting rid of the $50/month on the free accounts would probably be necessary too, although rather unfriendly to new players.

On the other hand, the game is currently _very_ generous w.r.t. people who just want to look around, so maybe that's not so bad.

I made similar sugestions 3 months ago, nothing is changing. Only discussions are repeating themselves.
From 3 months ago:
"
1-> make some of the sim auctions via L$ not usd.
2-> remove L$50/week
3-> bla bla
4-> bla bla
5-> form a federal reserve bank(to collect L$ from the world via uploads and other payments, and to give away wages.dont create new L$ so much), do not afraid to create a real economy.
....

"
List continues, nothing will be done like this because believe me, LL doesnt act looking our posts here.T hey are seeing only 10-15 posts of 5-6 people. Maybe they are right because 3500-4000 people online and here is only the words of 5-6. So, i suggest to LL(as i did 3 months ago), please find 2 good economists(finding 1 economist never works, it is a rule of economy u need 2 lol). They will notice some wrong things.

Enough already -- enough with the "down with socialism, cut the 50 L stipend"

Why is the stipend -- even in the aggregate -- a problem? The answer that's given is that it causes the value of the L to decrease -- adds L to the SL economy without corresponding value.

So -- tell me how this is different from L bought for $US. Yes, value is given for these L -- but *not* value that exists in SL. The inflationary effect, L-for-L, should be the same, all things being equal (and if stipend L are more likely to be spent on SL goods and services, short-term, then *those* L are *less* inflationary). Nobody knows which route is funnelling more L into SL.

Oddly enough, the proliferation of new sims is actually a good thing, here, since it introduces SL-value into the economy without cost in L (to the extent bought at auction, or with L specifically purchased for the transaction). Of course, this is why the L-value of land seems to be dropping.

One other thing -- why should new SL'ers want to go to full resident accounts rather than basic, when they can't find first land? Those of us who joined more than a few weeks ago all could have had the benefit -- and the profit from selling it.

LL is providing 'welfare' to landowners that provide content so Second Life is more than a sanbox. This is a valuable service and the Content Providers must be paid for their work. These 'worthy' events you speak of: Who decides what is worthy? From the traffic that the most popular places recieve it seems that the majority of folks that attend events feel Tringo and "Best in Black' contests are 'worthy'.

Your fix-the-economy plan has to take all of this into account.

In the long run we are all dead.
- John Maynard Keynes

If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
- George Bernard Shaw

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
- John Kenneth Galbraith

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.
- Laurence J. Peter

Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.
- Lyndon B. Johnson quotes

Economists are pessimists: they've predicted 8 of the last 3 depressions
- Barry Asmus

Economists are people who work with numbers but don't have the personality to be accountants.
- Anon

Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body - the producers and consumers themselves.
- Herbert Hoover

In economics, the majority is always wrong.
- John Kenneth Galbraith

I do. The L$ bought on the Lindex are funneling zero money into SL. None. Not a single Linden's worth.

That's because every L$ bought on the Lindex was sold by another resident there. Linden Labs does not create money to sell on the Lindex. Transactions on the Lindex don't serve as either a source or a sink to the L$ economy.

Could it be because the majority of folks dont have an alternative?

And one thing is certain, allowing things to remain the same will never "encourage" landowners to improve beyond the sea of -ingo games and the myriad of mediocre events that currently rule the events listing.

Eliminating dwell and allowing land owners to charge a fee to attend their events would promote creativity, innovation, and thought in the events offered.

It would be interesting to see exactly how worthy these "most popular" places would be if they continued offering Tringo and a "Best in Black" contest if dwell were eliminated and land owners had to compete for resident's entry fees into events.

Can anyone doubt that the innovation and creation of quality of events would improve if this were to happen?

Sink or swim.

Folks always have a alternative. They can do as the Content Providers do now- buy land, pay staff, buy the equipment necessary to host events and then produce whatever event they want. The Current Content Providers provide a service to LL, that LL use to recognize was worth paying for. As I stated before - no one is going to log into SL to stand in a desert. LL boasts 100,000 members - Content Prioviders had a lot to do with this happening.


Not financially supporting Content Providers is not "encourgaing". Like the abrupt end of telehubs its irresponsible and bad business.


Your not understanding that these Content Providers are creating content now - and spending large amounts of Lindens to pay staff and tier to do so. People are attending these events - no matter how un-creative and uninnovative they are. Cheyenne, you are welcome to provide something more innovative and creative - I'll be there!


People would be more inclined to attend events where they had the opporunity to win back their entry fee. So Tringo and Best in Black would always prevail - even when LL cuts off the content providers and places begin to go away.

AND with fee-based content coming down the pike we can all look forward to HOOKERS R US as being the most popular fee-based Content Provider because sex is something that quite a few people dont mind paying for.


I doubt it. What will happen would be the basic account holders who relied on their income from paid positions in these most popular places will not be able to afford to goto your innovative and creative events.