Why the rush to sell Lindens?

Don't you mean the price of a linden has fallen, not jumped? It's the cost of a US dollar in terms of Lindens that has jumped.

It used to be that 100 Lindens cost about 37 US cents, now they costing 34 cents. Which is still considerably more expensive than it was a few months ago when I joined SL and could buy 100 lindens for about 30 US cents so I don't think the sky is falling in yet.

Which is totally different for two reasons. One, the data was on a small scale. If you've watched the video clip then you know the copybot steals textures faster than most of us can load textures. Two, the community and Linden Labs were united that this was a bad thing and to be stopped. Here we see that the people making the bots are the friend of Lindens if not lindens themselves, and the first offical response was "Hey, they aren't breaking any laws." If Robin Linden wasn't trying to create a panic, then I'm not sure what he was trying to do.

As far as if the sky is falling, if enough people think the value of Lindens will drop, it will drop.

I asked you for viable substitute.

You provided me with substitute.

A subtle, but crucial difference.

I'm sorry that it didn't occur to me that specifing it should be viable to more than merest fraction of existing content creators ... would need to be spelt out.

Let me try again then, can you provide a viable substitute that all or at least the majority of existing SL content creators could use instead of the current, endangered model?

Apologies for my pedanticism. The short answer to your revised question is "no", and if there were such an alternate business model, likely people would be doing it already.

Yes, things will change, and people may have to adapt, to having better visibility so people know to buy from them, or towards other forms of work.

I don't expect it to be any consolation, but the advent of this kind of copying technology is an unstoppable consequence of the nature of the medium. Short of somehow convincing nVidia to include encryption within their graphics cards (and the chances of that are extremely slim), there is nothing technologically that can be done about the ability to copy things in the long term.

It's not a viable model, or even a practical one, but it's an alternative.

If you decide you want an $100 US return at the very least, and you'd normally price something at $275, you need at least 100 sales (assuming that's a realistic number) to get your projected return.

If you find a 100 people willing to pay $275 upfront before the item is released, you already have your return and whether or not the item gets copied doesn't impact that in any way, nor does it take away anything from the people who did pay because without their contribution the item wouldn't exist in the first place.

The obvious downside is that it will take more work to maintain the same level of profit because you're forced to create content at an increased pace rather than the create once, sell forever model that's in place now (which devalues the item in my eyes already so from a consumer perspective I see little difference between all-out copying or selling something that never goes off the market and that at some point everyone will have anyway).

The other real obstaticle is to get people to pay for something they don't have yet, which requires a level of trust, and would certainly favour the more well known brands over the unknown start-up.

The foundation of the SL economy is based on the payment system, the database, and the permission system (DRM).

When a linden states "we are not in the copyright enforcement business", then they are basically taking away their DRM. The database is already weak, and that just leaves the payment system which you can easily do via paypal.

They are significantly undermining the economy by reducing the DRM. Supply linden makes about 150,000 USD plus each month on the basis of the economy. In some respects it is not a large leap to say that 150,000 USD plus (over 1,800,000 USD on an annualized basis) is being paid to LL to be in the "copyright enforcement business".

I can only encourage content creators to vote with their wallet. Keep your L$ balances as close to 0 as possible and encourage fellow content creators to do likewise until Linden Lab reverses their policy on copyright enforcement.

I can see why people have the fear that Lindens$ will be worthless very soon and they want to cash out immediately...

I'm not scared though... I always cash out anytime I get lindens$. There's no way I going to have my money tied up in a false, unnatural economy with insider trading.

Many saw problems coming up and they cashed out. Many of the older time players just had enough. The way the game is going the basis for some people inthe game to lindens. Are just a small sign in the reason why people have cashed out. And a little thing called Island tier fees. No way i was going to buy a island after the way LLabs has been screwing up. Over a year I planned a Island, but no more!

Actually, now is the time to BUY $Lindens! You'll get a great $L to $US ratio, that hasn't been seen for months!

"I'm not scared though... I always cash out anytime I get lindens$. There's no way I going to have my money tied up in a false, unnatural economy with insider trading."

Waht is the heck is this? not scaried? False unnatural economy insider trading? Well it seems like some people never bought and sold rl stock. So seems as confused to say the least

Smart ones have already said cashing out and selling land was the only logical thing to do. these are not newbies love they are long term players on sl. We are all in deep poo.

Usagi, I am saying the exact same thing you are.... I am saying everything is in deep poo. I'm saying everyone should cash out because the linden$ are going to be worthless if the bot problem isn't erradicated. But I'm also saying that I have always sold any lindens$ i've gotten right away... LL creates money, decides its value, then sells money they create, there's no way in hell id' invest in that.... that's not the RL stock market.


And Wicked .... it is a good time to buy lindens$ if you're sure they'll go back to more valuable again....

as a long term player and seller of stuff myself.... i'm not scared either this isn't even a new problem. we've had things simmilar to this for ages (screenshotting, texture rippers, copy-by-number scripts, godmode...), and you all moved on. the value of lindens is still stable, and we'll be fine.

If the value of the linden$ is stable, who's buying things currently inworld? Who's spending money on objects currently?

you're asking me? the same people who always do.

That's not the case at all.... the people that usually buy things and spend lindens in SL are not the same people spending now.... these people are now cashing out, or quitting SL, or using the copybot. It's a guess, but I would say 25% of the normal inworld object sales are taking place.

The selling rate was still unusally high this morning when I started this thread, with an unusually large volume of sell offers listed. But it appears to have settled down since then. The total volume for the day yesterday was a little higher yesterday but only a couple of million.

my sales numbers haven't changed. people in this forum may be cashing out and leaving, but they don't make up much of mine or anyone else's customerbase. also lindex values are still right where they have been for weeks, with a small exception several hours ago when presumably a few dozen forums people cashed out.

It was more then a dozen. ...and the close price devalued the $L by $20 overnight...that's almost 10%, although a big hit not quite a crash. Yes, the market is stable now, and people are still buying thing. Additionally, the reaction to CopyBot caused more damage to the value of Lindens, then did Copybot itself.

This thread reminds me of the year 2000. The world was going to end. I cant cant live in a doom and gloom world.

I agree on everyone's posts since my last one. Definitely, the reaction to the copybot was what made people cash out.... but also LL reaction, statements, and non-reaction. I think the reason that it has slightly stabalized is because people are wanting to buy at this lesser-value linden rate..... It looks like a great buy on the graphs and charts... but the change is a whopping 1 US penny. If you buy about 16,000L you make about $1 USD more than you did last week....

oh? you really think so? Or are you ASSUMING people that are consumers are not to that high level ?.....I think your not fully aware of the numbers your talking about and the volume in which they have cashed out. Not including the land sales as well.

Y2k HAHAHAHAHAH Good one. Oh yes the computer was going to crash and all the data was going to be lost! The joke was on them

The irony here is that there is one sector of the SL economy getting a boost from this; security systems. I have noticed a spike of about 20% extra sales. These systems are scripts which are also immune from this copying.

It's rather strange to be in the industry that benefits from all this suffering and paranoia.

It also makes it incorrect for me to close my shop as it's offering some comfort or support (pseudo or not I am not sure)

Also it's prudent to point out my tagline quoting Corey...

Psyke Phaeton Is one of the better people inthe game. He gained alot of repect from his pairs from his ablity to honor his products and service! Has any award group given him and notice? NO! Why because he does not givenin to the normal BS on sl like some do.
We Love you Psyke Huggies and Kisses!

Just wanted to point out:

The Linden was steadily decreasing in value before LL stepped in and decided to buy and sell Lindens. I think the highest average I personally saw was something like 345-1.

Just because the Linden value has stayed roughly the same NOW, you can't apply how it was before, because LL didn't before buy or sell Lindens. They could just as easily bought out everything who cashed out, leaving the value close to the same, therefore decreasing public visability on just exactly what happened.