observations of an insomniac

The USD spent in 24 hours never rolls over anymore (trust me im awake to notice). At best the number will start at 1 million (sometimes it starts at 1.1m), then at the end of 24 hours it will have finished at around 1.3m. I have been making comments about the financial "blow back" that has occured due to the loss of gambling. However all i seem to hear is unfounded optimism (it will all re-adjust, the drop is just temporary) that the economy will recover.

LL no longer rolls its numbers over, so everyone viewing these numbers may have a false sense that the economy is rebounding, but that counld'nt be further from the truth. Again, when gambling was around, the USD spent would end daily at 1.7 million. Today we are missing $400,000 a day from the USD spent or $12m USD monthly. I say 400k and not more because LL has stopped rolling the numbers over making it difficult to get a more realistic reading(the last time i saw the numbers roll over, the USD spent started at 700k and barely passed 1.1m at the end of that 24 hours). I have gambled in the past (and i have won and loss, all winnings stayed here and was spent in-world) so this is'nt someone cheering for the casino owners. However, if i call myself even a little observant, one cannot help but to notice the large amount of money missing from our precious little economy since the ban.

I will continue to speak on this topic until everyone takes off their "rose colored glasses" and acknowledges that a place like SL( which you can liken to a third world country) can not lose an industry and just continue on with business as usual without feeling the financial strain that the lost may present. We are not, and have not recovered from the loss of gambling, nor has there been a creation of another industry that will compensate for our loss.

I will continue to post this theme every fortnight (just found out what that means) to keep these constant losses fresh on the minds of the optimists(there is nothing wrong with being an optimist just as long as you balance it with a dash of reality from time to time). Can't wait to hear the excuses.

I'm sorry to hear that you are unable to sleep (am I right in guessing that this is due to the worry caused by a lost business?)


Perhaps a good night's sleep will help you to get a less pessimistic view (-and if you are the owner of a lost gambling empire maybe you'll even dream of some ideas for alternative businesses?)

Yes...that's it...you need some sleep!

If Gambling and Sex were the only income, then the loss of 50 percent would ring some of my alarm bells, if that were my only means of income to live.

The Coal, Steel and Cloth industries were once major financial resources in the UK. they have gone, like the Empire it had too... The UK is still here.. it hasnt gone, but changed.

SL will change, stagnation would be as much a concern for me, If SL were mine, even though stagnation doesnt mean loss,progression and evolution are integral to nature.

is the purpose of SL to constantly grow and become richer? exactly what defines rich?, money?,depth of scope in thought?,people?,motivation?, change?,opptimism?, all of those and more?.

Reality, is all of those and more.. so yes i agree, opptimists have it in mind.

Obviously there was money flowing backwards and forwards between gamblers and casinos. And due to the law that flow has stopped so wont show up in the figures.

The question is does eliminating this part of the economy have any effect on the rest of the economy?
For example have clothing sales slumped ?

I have noticed people are spending less money.
I have even quit spending money personally except on tier and membership fees but its because of other factors then gambling.
One I am tired of spending any more money then I have.
I was spending to much and it was really messing with my budget anyway.
Two I don't want to deal with the new billing department any more then I have too..
When they moved their billing department to UK lot of things changed for worse as far as billing.
People who were from states noticed extra charges or nothing showing up for weeks in their bank accounts.
Others ran into issues with purchases being rejected and the like.
Then SL went on this avatar suspending spree and lot of people I bet who didn't understand what was happening or had no way to contact or get help got discouraged.
I would assume even if this happen to enough small percentage of the regular residents they would either quit or quit spending money.
This happen also in last month or two.
Then people lost lot of money reccently too with Ginko and I bet there is lot of disgusted and frusterated people.
Also in last few month people who did have campers don't any more.
There is less places to camp, less people who are spending money on camping chairs and less money being spent.

By the way I vote you get some sleep if you can.
If nothing else you can pretend you're sleep. Turn everything off and close your eyes and rest.

I know for a fact that some portion of the gambling industry has now been forced underground. The actual gambling activity is taking place in world but the exhange of money is not. So I dont think the daily USD spent as reported is accurate. On top of this allot of people are sick of the mainland and are moving to private sims where they pay tier monthly via Paypal. Allot more people are running estates with payment through paypal so again payments made outside of the game. I wouldnt trust the USD spent figures as reported by LL. They have always been a bit dubious. Personally I judge the state of the economy through my own business, and for the 30th month in a row my overall profit is up on the previous month. If there is $400K worth of Linden Dollars missing from the world each day compared to a few months ago, then I am not seeng it in my own finanicial records.

I don,t doubt that some casinos have gone underground. However, it would be hard for me to believe that the few that still exist are compensating for the ones that are gone forever (along with the cash that they generated). If the USD spent were being dictated by anthing other than the loss of gambling, then the dollars loss would have been seen in the same statistic awhile ago. I saw a climb from 1.2m to 1.5 m(where it seems to have gotten stuck for a while but still on the rise). Then it rose to 1.7(where it again stayed until the announcement of the gambling ban), and began to decline from there. Im not saying that the billing problems did not have an effect on the USD spent. But decrease became noticable after gambling was abolished, and the decline is now being hidden behind false numbers to indicate that we have somehow recovered or are recovering from the gambling loss.

Also, it would only be logical to think that there is a negetive trickle down effect towards other businesses in other industries(Ginko is a good example of large groups of people pulling their money out all at the same time, gee i wonder if they were gamblers, casino owners, and people who invested in that industry). Yes, im sure that alot of gamblers and casino owners pulled their money out of SL ASAP. However, there must be people like me who win and spend their money in-world. There has to be some effect.

I understand that the U.K like other industrialized countries have evolved(seeing one industry decline while another is created). But we can only liken SL to a third world country(small amount of citizens thriving off a limited amounts of industries) that can not afford to lose any income producing industries, because they know that industries are too hard to replace(our technology in SL prevents to some extent from creating new profitable industries).
As for sleep, i think i get the recommended daily allowance but it comes at strange intervals(awake 24hrs straight, then sleep for 5 or 6 hours). I'll be okay. It's good for doing research.

This would be the very obvious, and simple, solution to why the total USD traded has gone down.

The OP looked at, and listed the Total USD Spent, but failed to take into account the Total USD Paid Out.

You see, LL doesn't sell L$. They GIVE it away as part of your account subscription ie, your Stipend. This is how LL puts L$ into the economy. They take it back out with Texture Upload fees, Sound Upload Fees, etc etc.

L$ is trade for USD only between Residents. The impact of the loss of traded L$ doesn't effect LL one iota on a pure profit scale.

They did take a slight loss in the lost tier, but are slowly making that up as the land shift hands. The lower cost of land is actually a good thing for LL as it sells faster and they get their tier anyway. Now, if every casino owner whould ahve just Abandoned their land, which would have cut off any tier income to LL after teh next billing cycle, then it might have impacted LL more. However, the basic greed kicked in and they are selling the land. Sometimes for more, sometimes for less, but LL doens't care as the tier remains constant.

So you can continue to post every fortnight, but it still won't change the fact that we are not seeing the world though "rose colored glasses". The fact is you are seeing it though jaded glasses. Take them off and look at all factors. Better for the sleep.

~Jessy

Some people just require less sleep, I rarely sleep more then 5 hours in a night, I had an uncle the never slept more the 4.

That said what solutions do you have for this perceived problem? Any? It is quite easy to point out a problem, but it is considerably more difficult to find a viable solution. Perhaps you should spend more time postulating solutions for the problem, rather then starting several threads pointing it out.
{Not saying I have never done the same }

I have several ideas I would love to try, but I have neither the expertise, nor the funds to do so. My ideas work within the rules, they are not an attempt to tip toe around them.

i never gambled or engaged in cyber pixel sex so my SL experience has not changed one little bit.... if anything, SL is better to explore right now. my glasses are perfectly clear.

i will buy lindens when i need something, and don't see how that's changed either.

tip: lay off the caffiene after 6:00pm.

*chews her lip* Did the other SL industries take a hit because of the loss of gambling? (Not Real Estate.. they did take a hit.)

No. Honestly, I think we took a hit because of the 'loss of inventory' bugs, the can't TP bugs, people not receiving what they paid for because of SL bugs, and the ever annoying, but happening every few days, "CAN'T SEARCH" bug. I don't care what LL's ToS says, the Linden does have a monetary value and people aren't going to want to spend L when they are unlikely to get what they paid for.

I hear you. But there is no sense in posting every fortnight or fifthnight on this subject. LL had no choice. The U.S. government shut gambling down. It was either close down gambling or close down SL. Get some sleep.

Also, people may be spending less money because there is no guarantee their no copy purchases won't be permanently lost when a rez attempt occurs.

I haven't bought anything inworld in a month. I used to play SLingo just to make enough to cover the rent on my sky box and maybe buy something from time to time but now I my reserves are about used up so I'll probably just let the rent lapse and go find something different to do. I'm not complaining about the gambling ban -- I fully understand the legal problems. I'm just noting that it was a fun way to keep my inworld rent payments up and now it's gone so I'll stop renting and buying things.

Mybe it was the bugs that was responsible for the hit. However the numbers would have reflected that before the loss of gambling.
Im also well aware that the stat i talk about involves in-world trading(could that mean that someone joined SL to take their avatars straight to a casino and spend money. And now that there is no gambling, the amount of money that we see getting spent in-world has decreased substantially). Less money traded in-world, less money pulled out(it would be illogical to think that one thing has nothing to do with the other).

Since the ban, there is more property for sale and auction, the question is whether the land is selling as quick as it was five weeks ago(and if not then why?).

I was not a hard core gambler nor was i a casino owner, so i really have nothing to be jaded about. What i am is a person who purchases the creations of others while watching how the world of SL develops. I guess i was jaded enough to hear about SL and sign up for a premium account on the first day, how about you?

It seems to me that you cant deliver an unbiased opinion about SL without being jaded or pessimistic. I just don't make excuses for bad business decisions or a poor business accumen. You simply can not replace an industry like gambling in our little third world platform. If it were that easy we would see the emergence of a new industry on the horizon( do you see one, please let me know what it is).

As for solutions, you said you had a few however the ventures may cost to much. I understand that as all of my solutions also have high barriers of entry. However this is a problem with living in a third world setting(we are a small country of sorts that can't afford for any of our industries to shut down). It is harder for us to recover from such losses. And any thought of building new industries would not be cost effective to the average SL resident.
But my solutions have been strategically placed in a business plan, and it gets eyeballed by VC's and hedge funds. My problem is that the solution(one solution is to open source the server code) cannot and will not be embraced by LL, because it undermines their long term visions of revolutionizing the internet. So now i am forced to look at other options like starting my own 3-d platform for instance which required me to make some changes to the budget(now 15m USD for year one operating expenses).

My caffiene in take is low as i am not a coffee drinker. If i get caffiene in my system, chances are it is through drinking soda.

Actually Wales and Scotland have quite a few decent coal mines still going. See UK Coal and Scottish Coal websites.

Casinos and gambling are gone bye bye. Allow yourself several days of mourning, then get over it. There really is no use crying over spilled milk.

The sun will rise in the morning. Life goes on. SL will survive and evolve without it.

Adjust or perish.

**Skips on down to thread No. 248734 of 5038272 of the doom and gloom "Casinos and gambling are gone so therefore it is the end of SL" threads on this forum.**

Hmmmmm.... I would suggest that the impact of losing gambling has had virtually NO effect on the economy at all. For a true picture you have to look at it seasonally adjusted, so you should compare August 2007 with August 2006. And what would you get if you did this, you would see...

A MASSIVE expansion in the economy.

Also - the online figure, which is a good indication of potential economic activity, was still around 40,000 to 50,000 over the weekend (presumably this takes into account all those avatars that are NOT gambling and are NOT camping at casinos), compared to a max of about 20,000 online at any time at the start of the year.

Apart from online figures, the MAJOR factors that affect the economy are grid stability and in-world functions such as search, TP, rezzing of images (on vendors, etc), and client side lag (which gets worse and worse as the PC performance demands by SL increases). August has been a horrific month for grid stability, combined with the general summer downturn (some people will actually go out into the RL daylight and go on holidays, etc).

Of course, i would accept that the "gambling economy" has collapsed, including all those that invested in it directly (um.... a notable bank for example)....

I find that the best single indicator of economy activity is the PMLF figures which track back several months - and - errm, look pretty healthy to me.

Again, i am not crying or bitter over anything (that seems like a mindless mantra in here), i have no reason to be. But cheyanne, since you know that "the sun will come out tomorrow", and that SL will recover. Please explain exactly how you know. I saw that you copied what i said. But where are providing insight as to how SL will recover. Ther are great many of you that say people need to get over things, but the way one would gets over things is if people like you would stop saying how okay its going to be in the future and offer some insight as to how or what you know that is going to make the future bright.

Again i have no axe to grind, as i have'nt lost anything due to the ban. However with every issue that arises in SL, there are people like you with the same type of response. I dont like answers that are void of thought. So please take some time and give me a critical anaylysis of how this change will come about.

What kind of individuals think that building and running a 3-D platform does'nt cost money? Alot of people talk as if they don't mind if spending decreases, or corporations start pulling out of SL, or people stop spending money in-world just as long as you have a place to build things and be creative, that everything will be alright. And people from that ilk also believe if more people leave, there will be less lag( and yippie, more building stuff). Snap out of it, this is a business model(not a very good one) that thrives from income that is not coming in as fast as it once was. So it may or may not be okay in the future. I am just not nieve enough to say that SL will definitely be a sucess in the future(like most of you blindly do) just for the sake of saying it. I guess thats what makes me jaded.

Rudolph. Does the number of on-line users dictate how much money is being spent in-world. Because if their is a user base of 50 thousand over the weekend, should'nt there be a rise in in-world spending(over the usual 1.3m).

Considering how precarious the stability issue has been lately, this is not a good period to judge.

Well, yeah - I said "potential" economy activity. broadly speaking though, I think the number currently online is a good proxy (indirect) indicator of activity, all OTHER things being equal (like TP working, in-world cash systems working, LindeX working, and ability to transfer items into inventory, etc). This of course DOES NOT mean that individual traders benefit directly from increased numbers, cos increased numbers online could also indicate increased number of traders.

Looking at it more broadly though, ultimately casinos in-world do not actually give money back to the economy - they are a cash-out mechanism (with the exception of camping, which is a VERY limited part of the ecomomy compared to land sales and other goods).

I think spending is down because the 'big boom' is cooling, more than anything else.

I see a sort of retained new user spending curve - small exploratory spending, which then rapidly climbs upward to dizzying heights, then settling down dramatically after a few months as the novelty wears off.

Concurrency numbers have been stable, not climbing, for quite a while now. That means that we are getting new users replacing those that leave at roughly the same rate, but it's nowhere near the expansion rate and spending that we had.

I don't know how significant gambling was to the economy, but I would guess that gambling was more 'flush-through' money than anything else. Sure there was some economic stimulation from it, but how much simply came in via one account and left the same day via another? That's the big question.

Jamil, by your post you appear to be an eternal pessimist. I, on the other hand, am an eternal optimist. Whereas you chose to see the glass as half empty, I see it as half full. There is really nothing either one of us can do about that. Our minds are just wired differently.



Yet you appear so very trouble and worried.



And with every issue that arises, the sun does still rise in the morning. Life does go on. SL does survive.

Does it not?



/me runs her fingers through Jamil's hair in a soothing motion while whispering softly in his ear ...

"Everything will be alright ... Trust me."

i can only speak for myself. i KNOW it will because i will log in tomorrow, and pay $US for L$ and have fun, and be glad to not have to skim through a laggy casino sim anymore when i'm trying to find the right kind of purple shoes to match my new smock. i will even buy more land now that it's cheaper. i think it's been a great thing for those of us on a budget.

you need to do the same thing you are asking others to do. why do you think SL will fold? you haven't really said, just thrown out outrageous accustations with not basis whatsoever.

What accusations. Name them. What i have been saying is that the economy will find it very difficult to recover from an industry being abolished in SL(because our industries are limited). An industry to which people continue to say held no financial weight in SL. I believe thats nonsense. Because the stats have been declining since the ban started(thats not by happenstance), and although many different problems COULD be contributing to the economic decline. It has only shown itself significantly when the ban on gambling came around. That is my point.
Outside of Desmond, i would always read how people are so sure that the decline was'nt from the gambling ban. How casino owners and gamblers immediately cashed out (you know this for certain or did they spend money with other merchants in SL), how SL would recover from the ban(oh really are you sure about that. Or will the economy just stay as it is or decline). Too many people speaking with conviction, when you really don't know.

It will get better does'nt set well with someone with an business accumen. Do any of you think about starting a business and you just hope that it is sucessful( i certainly hope not) without proper research. It is just going to be okay because you say so.

If i am branded a pessimist because i can recognize that a ban on gambling has caused a decline in spending, then so be it.
A pessimist may see things negatively, and if they enter a situation that does'nt have a negative outcome, the pessimist is pleasantly surprised. The optimist always sees the good, and is never prepared for the bad. And if they enter a situation that has a negative outcome their fucked because they never saw it coming(they werent thinking about the negatives). I'm neither, im a realist. I see whats in front of me. If it is a bad situation, i have no need to try and look for the positives. If its a positive situation, i have no need to look for negatives. Its that simple.