End Stipends Now - An Open Letter to King Philip

So we all agree that the stipend system as it stands now is bad. Right, right??

Anyone?


Ideas:

We need more L$ sinks. Ways to permanently take money out of circulation.

I'm just throwing stuff out here, comments/criticism welcome

*Increase upload fees (say 50-100$/item instead of 10)
*LL creates a branch that makes content themselves. When you buy linden content, your money disappears instead of being recirculated.
*Remove NEWBIE stipends. 50$/week is pitiful. Not worth it to the people, yet the combined drag on the economy can't possibly be helping. Plus its open to abuse.
*LL enters the land game. Make sims/large plots affordable to Joe R. Resident, and have him pay with L$ - same as before, money paid to LL goes off the table.

BESIDES removing premium stipends, do you have any other ideas to get L$ out of circulation?

Nope, the only thing wrong is the people who made money off stipends, now trying to prevent competition.

Mm.. thats a hell of an assumption to be making. I'm talking about how the stipend system AS IT STANDS TODAY,

(and heres another assumption, but i can back it up)

WILL break the economy. Its called devaluation and inflation because there is too much money on the table! Economics 101.

"I can just imagine everyone pulling out of the game, trying to get ride of there Lindens and the value just dropping like a rock anyways."

The people who have money to sell aren't those who would mourn the loss of L$50 or L$500 added to their account every week. Most make many, many times more than that each day.

They'll certainly celebrate the fact that each day would no longer see a dwindling of the value of the money they have because the currency is being diluted.

Musuko.

Not an assumption, though if my limit of understanding economics was an american 101 class, I might think so.

But the average player, those peoples customers would, and they would buy -far- less or become competitors, and still no longer shop at your store, or bring you money in anyway. Sure the economy might snap back to 250 lindens to the dollar on sell rate, but you would be making maybe 1/4 of what you were before.

Also, the people paying for their stipends through premium would mourn, and many quit. Even if I didn't teir down, I would no longer spend my money at other stores as liberally. No longer would I buy impulse buys, and I would make sure I -needed- soemthing and couldn't -make- it myself. Less income for you.

Now heres a question folks:

You make 5000 lindens a day, and it sells at 310 lindens to the dollar. Thats over 16 dollars US.

Remove stipends. People are more careful with their money. You now make 2000-2500 lindens a day, but the rate is an optimisitic 250 lindens to the dollar. Thats 8-10 dollars.

Now do you REALLY want to kill your consumer base?

My letter; Sure, remove the stipends. Saves me $72 a year in paying for a now completely unnecessary premium account. Like there's really any use in keeping a premium account for a nearly useless 100 prim 512m land plot... And I probably won't be the only one either to see how unnecessary it is to pay your company $72 a year for a totally stripped and practically useless account.

Actually it will save me $144 a year since I have two premium accounts. So I'm all for it. I hope you're all for a massive loss of revenue, as the casual gamer base, yes I said GAMER base, which is probably 80% of your subscription base does the same or look elsewhere for a game that hasn't forced them to be at the mercy of greedy barons or built soley to nickel and dime them to death.

Remove the stipend to appease the greed of a few and IMO you're just slicing your own throat. It is the majorities interest you should look out for...

Sincerely,
Charlton Cline
Paying for two premium accounts and tiered for a whole sim, so I'm not speaking as a freebie account. Remove the stipend and yes, you'll hear a big sucking sound. Not of lindens, but of your player base.

No.

Um, wait a sec. Is my math correct on this?


1 - ($250l / $317) = 0.2113 = %21

If that's correct, wouldn't that mean that the L$ has dropped only %21 in the last, um, almost two years?

Personally, I think just cutting the premium stippend by 1/3rd (500 * 2/3 = $333L) and leaving the free accounts with their $50 a month stipend would help drive up the $L quite a bit, possibly even back up to $250 (since 333*52/72 would make the base cost for linden be $240L/1USD, adjusted for other stipends and inflation possibly add another $10l to that). No need to cut ALL the stipends, just get rid of LindenLabs undercutting everyone who is trying to sell on LindeX

Why would they leave if there are at least two other markets where they can exchange their L$ for US$, those being SLExchange and eBay?

You forgot furries. "Come to SL and have fun with furries or be a furry." Although that probably some how ties in with sex, too, so eh...

I paid for 500/week. Until the end of the current agreement, I expect it.

Why doesn't anyone imagine people realizing without stippend, they need to now buy linden to do stuff, and going to LindeX to fill more buy orders?

*hears the shrieks of protest from paying SLers*

Until the end of the curent agreement you will probably receive it. This isn't the first time Lindens have screwed with what you get for a premium account. Find an old-timer who joined in 2003, and ask them about things called "Lifetime Accounts"

Expect all you want. Your "contract" also said they could change the agreement, without warning or your consent, AT THEIR DISGRESSION.

Enjoy.

Discretion. And I can do the same: by dropping to basic and paying them NOTHING.

Because of the mindset I've seen alot around SL 'buying L is for losers.'

You are wrong.

317 - 250 = 67

67 / 250 = .268 or ~ 27%

ah, yes, you're right. So %27 in the last two years. Still not too bad.

Actually the 21% figure is a better figure.

1000 Lindens was worth $4.00 (250L/$).
1000 Lindens is now worth $3.16 (317L/$)

So 1000 Lindens is worth about 79% of what it used to be worth in USD. That's a 21% decline.

cut stipends out, thats all that needs to be said. Real life or second life, if a government (or linden) prints and hands out money, the value depreciates. So stipends need to go and it should be ended asap because it ruins the concept of supply and demand, there's no demand for people to buy lindens if it's always supplied for free. It won't cut the player base, no other mmo gives free "gold" or "currency" every certain amount of time, they have to kill creatures, mine, or perform other tasks for it. In SL that task might be creating a service, doing something for someone, or a million other ways. The point is that money is given out to those who work for it.

If we end stipends, what will replace them? Prices for everything will go through the roof in an economy that has a net loss of L$13308172 (based on April figures). And in a few years when there are no L$ left, then what will we do?

The biggest problem with the economy is that you can get 26k for 72USD. The mark will stabilize right around this value unless something else changes.

when the game needs more currency, stipends may be introduced again. Or to keep stipends, don't set it to a hard number, the number needs to fluxuate with the market.

or better yet, get rid of variating trade/sell prices. Set the buy and sell price to the same, $250L per $1USD. We don't need an up and down market.