The Lordfly Fallacy

Here we go again with another Robert Ludlum special : )

The College Kid Armchair Economist is at it again, with all the other fanboyz, so let's just inject a little bit of field experience corrective, shall we? My comments intersticed in bold with LF's post today:

Another inflation thread? Oh yes. This one makes sense, though. :) 

Modest are we?

---

Okay, seriously guys, gals, alts and trolls.

Let's have some thinking.

Currently:

The yearly cost of a premium account is $US 72.00.

In a year, a premium account will accumulate $L500 * 52 = $L26,000.

$L26,000/$US 72.00 = $L361.

OK STOP RIGHT THERE COLLEGE KID. Here is the essense of the Lordfly Fallacy about a $361 value of the Linden. It is based on hypothetical annual accounts, of which there are only a very tiny number in our system. Most accounts are basic and are not annualized premium accounts. Most premium accounts are monthly or quarterly. Therefore, constructing a panic and a claim of a true value of a Linden based on an entirely trumped-up, phony model of a world of annualized subscriptions of people paying $72 to get a $361-value Linden is completely and utterly wrong.

*HOW MANY* annualized Premium Accounts are there in Second Life? Leave aside the relative handful of people who bought charter memberships to get the tier-free 4096 for life. There just aren't that many. Hell, I've been in SL a year, have loads of land, spend loads of time there, and I refuse to get an annual subscription. I don't want $72 to hit on a credit card, and then either get banned from the game, or have the game go bust. Even one account's annualization is too big a risk. I let even some of my alts go on $9.95/month. I've got most on the three-month schedule, but others I've talked to anecdotally indicate that they go $9.95/month or $21.95/3 months but do not sign up for the annuals. So please, let's just stop this fake conversation about the $361 Linden until we can get some real numbers for how many annual subscriptions there are. Let's not assume that this game is made up of clever Chinese gold farmers who bought the $72 subscriptions, but realize SL isn't really very fertile territory for Chinese or anybody's gold farming, and there just aren't the $72 subscriptions you imagine.

Fake economic analysts, especially brainy ones, always want to show off to you that they've scrolled ahead and noticed something like a cheap annual subscription rate or something to use with their power-mathing and number-crunching. Well, that's silly. These systems are complex, and they really deserve a far harder look at the real numbers in them.

Indeed, let's get the figures for how many premium accounts period! Back when there were 40,000 subscriptions, we heard that out of 9000 people, only 6000 bought land. So that means 3000 had the premium with only the free 512, the rest bought more land. That means 31,000 people were on basics only. THOSE are the real numbers to be examining when looking at the economy, not fake annualized subscriptions from people who didn't buy them.

What are the figures for the premium subscriptions now? They are probably easily triple 9000, but still a small percentage out of the whole 130,000 we have now -- most of them are basics as we know just from eyeballing SL's inhabitants. Of these, only 20,000 a day log in, with 4,000 or so online at any time. So let's try to really analyze the economic activity of a real population who paid X amounts in subscriptions or cash purchases of LL, and stop the fakery.

So, the "true" value of the $L is roughly $L361.

Well, no, as I've just explained. It's not a true value of anything, except a highly hypothetical world made up of lots of people who bought the annual subscription -- and we don't have that, even accounting for the farmers. You don't obtain the true value of something by reaching for a hypothetical number -- totally fake because there are hardly any annual subscriptions in the system -- then continue to compute with it. At least reach for the $21.95/3 months figure which will give you $289/$1.00, which is in fact right where the LinDEX is most days in these last few weeks. Maybe it is already at its true value then?

But there are so many other factors! Let's start with the $512 subsidized 512 land you get with the premium. 6000 out of 9000 premium holders (out of 40,000) opted just to keep the 512 or possible sold it, and 3000 went further. Not a lot! But still, the annual or quarterly subscription cost, if used as a figure to compute Linden dollar worth MUST include the rates at which people sell back their subsidized first land -- anywhere from $1500-$3500 or even lots more these days. That will in fact further devalue the rate, so it should be considered.

Obviously it's not there (yet). Why, you ask?

It's not there because it's a fake number.

From version 1.2 onward (January of 2004), the driving force of the $L has been land demand and land novelty.

When land was in extremely short supply, the price of land shot through the roof (we're talking average prices in the double digits per square meter here) as the Lindens scrambled to meet demand. As a result, during this time the value of the $L against the US dollar rose dramatically as everyone was pushing against the money supply to get some land. High land prices meant a high demand for a lot of $L in your account at once to pay the land barons (who, by sheer coincidence, were then selling the $L right back on the market, and the cycle repeated itself).

This is one of those inworld myths that a small group of people got hold of like a dog with a bone, and which obviously scarred the Lindens, and they won't let go, either -- and which merely consist of frankly socialist and utopian induced hatred of land barons and a refusal to look at reality and look at the real laws of supply and demand.

What happened is that temporarily, during the summer lull, in 2004, the Lindens didn't produce as many sims. And the Land Barons were then able to raise their prices considerable due to increased demand for land. When first land in particular wasn't available, it made people panic and get angry and it made the anti-land baron faction on the forums have a field day. They were able to scream loud, long, and hard about gouging land barons and scare the Lindens out of doing something they should have done -- let land find its value naturally, stop producing it like pancakes, and let demand of barons and individual buyers trigger land manufacturing and not visa versa. They were afraid to do it -- and still are, despite their avowed claim of only having "on-demand" $1000 auctions now.

When these high prices occurred, everyone forgets that they occured on mainly new, prime, mature, waterfront land, not ALL land. They didn't occur on flat PG land. They didn't occur on Land in My Sim, which is often the cheapest because who wants of 1024 hillside behind your build? But because the demand for prime, mature, waterfront is so high, when that gets scarce or very high priced, people perceive it as a "land scarcity". It's nothing of the kind. In fact, there's even still mature waterfront available, but for less.

The perception of the land market, it's reality, and the perception's affect on the actual cost is one of those "reflexivity" issues in markets described so well by George Soros in his books. It doesn't matter what something is really worth, or what is happening in a market in reality; the perception is just as important and rocks the market. In a tiny toy world like Second Life, this is even more the case!

To this day, the Lindens continue to fear a land panic, "crowding" -- that's what they claim when you demand to know why they keep producing such a prodigious glut on the market. But there can't possibly be "crowding" in a system where there are entire half sims sitting there baking in the sun with no takers, and where most sims have loads of land for sale in them. The "crowding" that is occuring is ONLY on prime, mature, waterfront. Look on the land map, and see how it works. Only that land tends not to be for sale because people are on it, and staying on it. And only that land tends to be for "high prices".

The moral of this story: When there's something to BUY, the price of the $L goes up.

Eventually, the Lindens got a hold of the demand problem, and the price started to skid. But lo! The snow sims came out, and suddenly there was a mini-rush of snow land. A slight spike in $L prices again! Alas, no one wants snow land now; it's dead territory.

Another major SL myth, and one I've disproved again and again. Sure, snow, especially PG snow is in the toilet. But..not always..and not really. If that were true, even socialist land sellers like Garnet Psaltery couldn't be selling snow for as high a price as she is selling it -- just go look at the map in Cottonwood, Afton, Durango, etc. -- geez, open your eyes. There's nothing "dead".

I first got large tracts of Mature snow land off the auction as a newbie at a good price when I didn't realize it was on the downward spiral in value. But then, contrary to the myth, I sold it for $6.9 at the time, which wasn't great at all for mature, but was pretty good for snow. Since that time, just out of curiosity monitoring the snow market, I see that good waterfront snow, of which there isn't much, actually still goes for $8 or 9/meter just like any good waterfront. It's just that a lot of the snow was put on really steep mountains where people have trouble building, so sure, it goes for less. But even there, at certain times, i.e. Christmas, snow climbs to value of $7.5/meter in mature or even more. Depends on what's next to it, etc. Snow isn't on the good buy list, but it's a complex market and to make a categorical statement like "snow is always worthless and always cheap" is not to understand just how volatile this market is. All it took this term, for example, was a few clubs and camp-chair kings to move into snow in the perception it was the cheapest land, so they could maximize their investment, for snow to suddenly climb in price, including for them as they needed to buy more of it.

Anyways, the price of the $L goes up when there's an incentive to buy things.

Currently there is STILL a higher pressure to buy things than there is money in the economy. That's why it's at $L280/$US 1.00 rather than $L361.

No, it's either at $LL280 because your "true value" theory is right, and the "true value" is $289 for the much-more-frequently purchased 3-month subscription OR because the Lindens land-glut and also flushed a huge telehub buyback through the system -- and also with the instability of their telehub debacle flushed out of their game some land barons who simply cashed out and quit playing.

There are other factors, too; a burgeoning amount of basic accounts is keeping the price up, at least initially, as people pay money on the exchange to satiate their spending habits.

No, because a huge number of these accounts are "tourists" -- people who play for 7-21 days and leave and never come back, but their accounts, being free, remain in the system. And the real people who buy more Lindens are not the basics, who always feel poor, or the skeptics or those addicted to other games, but those already on premiums who need LL to buy land, or to buy content to put on their land. So that number is not a big pool.

Eventually, though, the current economic climate of SL is what is dooming it to its slide towards the magical "floor" of $L361. That is, there's almost nothing you can't get for free, including $L.

Want a house? Gnu store. Vehicle? Tons of free ones. Clothing? Geez, there's so much free clothing it's sick. Scripts? Lots of free ones, or sandbox kiddies who love to tinker for you.

Entertainment? You're kidding, right? Who charges for events?

And if you want $L, all one has to do is camp on the camping chairs or play Tringo until their head explodes. OR both at once, I hear that's popular nowadays.

So here we are; the constant push for things to be affordable and free in SL has forced the $L on a downwards slide. That, coupled with the fact that there really isn't any compelling need to buy $L20,000 at once, means the value will continue to slide down.

The game is growing more slowly, like other more complicated games with more attraction to higher-end gamers grow slowly. Instead of marketing to these power gamers, LL has chosen to market to masses who can't be satisfied in a game where they get no land for free they can continue to build content on, like they can in TSO, and they get no fun shooting and adventures, but only get banned for shooting if they don't stay in very tiny prescribed areas. So that strategy is a bust, and it's surprising that it is taking them so long to find this out.

unless:

1) The Lindens cut premium stipend (unlikely, given that would anger even more people than last time)

It would really be insane for the Lindens to cut off the middle class, the actual growing part of the game, the stable part of the game, and the game that pays huge tier bills in many cases, mounting into the thousands of dollars. They have to perceive the premium account with its free 512 and its $500 a week as a package like chips and coupons for a casino, that will get people to spend many, many more times that initial freebie. They cannot expect people who have land and produce content for free, or for heavy subsidizing by putting in volunteer time, not to get anything back.

2) People stop handing out things for free (will never happen, probably a good thing for the SL culture, but bad for the SL economy and, possibly, indirectly affecting LLAbs' bottom line)

They should stop giving away so much stuff for free, which only clogs the market, often with inferior crap, and merely seals the hold of a few over the many because it isn't altruism that drives them, but the name recognition for their more expensive lines in their brand, and the reputation enhancement they seek for helping newbies. They in fact only vitiate newbie initiative and also make sure newbies keep from competing with them -- it's really a vicious system and one that really needs to be heavily challenged by massive sales of freebies, especially by enterprising newbies -- it's the only way. That will end the rapid viral spread of the freebies because content creators will be forced to put the items on "no transfer" and at least get freebie seekers to their stores.

In fact, the single greatest massive act of effective protest by the population in SL today, to help the economy and improve the Linden/US dollar rate, would be for everybody to start selling all freebies, starting with the dumb Linden flamingos in the Library, and ending with Siggy Romulus hideous beach house. Sell every single free thing that isn't nailed down for as much as you can get for it, now.

And the Lindens need to stop promoting this freebie culture by putting FIC free content into the InfoHubs and Welcome and Help Islands, creating loss-leaders only for the feted few, and by ceasing to compete with their own residents and giving subsidized or free land, space, instruction, help, etc. All of this should be contracted out or allowed to develop in a free market, and the Lindens should keep it to a minimum.

3) People stop providing $L sponges to satiate dwell desires (will probably happen once the Dwellclubs go under because of DI going away)

We'll see some abatement of the camp chairs when Dwellopers' go away, but dwell payments in Lindens aren't going away just as immediately, and even if all these subsidies are taken away, the traffic number on a lot will still mean an enormous amount to any club, mall, or attraction, and they will still go to enormous lengths, even paying avatars for their sit-time, to keep those numbers up.

The $L is going to continue marching towards $L361.

Um, unless it doesn't..in which case we can only march you and the Lindens back to their computers and ask to get the real figures for: 1) the amount of money paid into the system for the telehub paybacks 2) the actual number of annual subscriptions; 3) the actual number of premiums who opted to use the 512 or tier up further; 4) the real daily log-on numbers -- and probably other things I'm not thinking of, in which case we can then both get a better handle on the economy AND figure out the "true rate of the Linden".


Some other things:

1) Basic stipend isn't going away; that doesn't make any sense for anyone for any reason, and don't let the economic trolls/alts on ehre tell you otherwise. If basic accounts didn't get any sort of stipend, the economy would grind to a halt, and the $L would deflate so quickly your head would asplode. Also, no one would have any customers because -- gasp -- they have no money to spend.

Yeah, ditto the premium. Why on earth would Lindens cut $500 from the people who actually spend more time in world, pay loads of tier bills, and buy lots of land off the auction? They have to get SOMETHING back.

2) The Lindens have no plans to implement any sort of tax, investment bank, income tax, property tax, land tax, or land price cap. Why? Because that's a ton of insane variables to tweak every week.

Taxes were tried once to curb prim usage: it was a complicated failure.

Investment banks don't make any sense, because you're just adding to the inflationary nature of the $L.

Income tax? Easily avoidable by gaming any sort of system you kids can come up with.

Land tax? Hurts the economy by forcing Land Barons to charge more to cover the land tax, and hurts smaller land sellers unfairly.

Land price cap? Un-capitalistic, and entirely subjective; it breaks the lassiez-faire capitalism that the market currently works under.

You're forgetting that your social-engineering socialist Linden pals in fact do have an essential built-in land-price cap called "Our Land Glut". They deliberately force-feed the auctions. They maintain this myth that it is "on demand" but they do stuff like suddenly put out 40 bulkauction sims and dare Anshe NOT to buy such a huge whack of sims or lose her market share. That's not meeting demand, that's playing a very sophisticated game of "chicken". They put out 20 $1000 sims for sale just because they have the staff time to make them and figure baby barons worried that someone else might get their name on the successful bid list will get ahead -- the psychological  factor in a game economy is huge, and bears NO relationship to an RL notion of "demand" based on "sales" and "use". Baby baron land is sitting out unsold in droves, and the prices are starting to come down now up north. Mature waterfront that was $12/meter is now available at even $5/ or $6/meter, the new north bubble is bursting, yet the Lindens keep producing. The very useful numbers that blaze Spinnaker produced showing that the Lindens still keep their $5/meter median value of land shows you that they are achieving, even if not consciously producing, a controlled land market. They do this by just plain releasing too much land. They should stop, and allow the land barons to price up prime waterfront mature -- the pain of that and the screeching of the forums that land barons are "gouging" should be grinned at and borne -- and land should start to find its true value in SL and demand can normalize. Meanwhile Land on My Sim which never goes for much can start to sell when the land barons clutch at it less hard, and let it go for more normal prices instead of trying to extort from the very small pool of people willing to buy it, which is People on That Sim and not Other People. Other People will go and buy the more expensive prime new mature waterfront.

Other factors that may or may not affect the $L price: People gaming the Lindex, people dumping millions into the market at once (hi Anshechung.com), the actual strength of the US dollar, the sheer number of basic accounts vs premium accounts, and the affect the economic money sinks have on the money supply vs what's coming in.

Despite armchair FIC fanboyz constant sniping at anshechung.com, they actually don't "dump Lindens and cash out". If they "dump Lindens" it's merely to go buy another sim, often buying inworld land that is liquidated, or auction land, in Lindens, which then of course either gives the Lindens to other players or sinks the Lindens. Thus, they keep their money in world -- they maintain a huge float that is essentially interest-free unless they secretly, on an alt, park some of it in Ginko LOL.

Unlike the FIC fanboyz who are kaching-ing out their vendors and NEVER investing again inworld in land or services or commissioning of builds, etc. anshechung.com pours just as much into the economy as she pulls out, if not more.

For those of you keeping score at home:

Money Sinks: Upload fees, classified ads, anything paid to a Linden, the defunct land auction process, dormant accounts, deleted accounts, banned accounts

Um, why defunct? The auction thrives. And have you noticed that the Lindens take abandoned land and don't sell it for Lindens (as they really should!) but sell it for dollars sometimes! Many brand-new people who aren't barons you've never heard of, a generally wealthier class of SL patron than the basic college boyz who fill up the basic ranks, are buying for dollars at $1000 a pop, or buying in Linden those big parcels that still very frequently go up for sale on the auction. Deleted accounts? Do Lindens really delete accounts? Looks to me like once you sign on for a free basic, it's yours for life, whether you never log on again. That's how they can claim 130,000 people. Banned accounts? That's hardly a significant number for this population.

Money Creators: Stipends, Traffic, Linden payments (for services rendered), Linden prize money, Linden promotions, referral bonuses, ninjas

So there we go: A crash course of SLeconomics 101 by someone who's been here since before the $L was worth anything, and public land was plentiful.

Well, get back in world again, Lordfly, and stop it with the fake numbers. The land market doesn't work anything near like what you imagine, the Linden is not heading toward $361 which is a fake number. It's low now because of these major factors:

1) Killing of GOM -- a huge loss of confidence, exit of businesses, loss of businesses, tiering down of major customers -- a real factor.

2) Flooding of the land market -- persistent devaluation of land, the one stable, visible, non-inventoriable product in SL.

3) Inefficient markets for Land on My Sim to find buyers -- imagine, they nearly closed the classifieds for land and rentals! Most people aren't going to pay even $30 to sell their land from FIND, let alone $50 in Classified, they just put it for sale, misjudging the market, so it sits there for months and months.

4) p2p windfall to content creators -- a whopping quadrupling in daily sales goes mainly to those with established reputations -- who refuse to invest back in the game by buying land, goods, services, commissioned builds, etc. but who just cash out what's theirs and go play WoW.

5) A crappy LindEx template that pops in the supposed "best rate" when you sell which is actually the best rate for buying! This HAS to stop. Many mistakes and stupid instant sales at way below market value are made when a simple, visual graph of where the market stands should enable most people to park their buy or sell orders as they did on GOM. Lindens deliberately  drove down the value of their own currency to artificially pump up content sales by creating this utterly idiotic system of popping in a value of a currency and forcing you to override it if you wish to sell. Many newcomers to the system and even many oldtime users like myself can get horribly burned -- I once sold Lindens for half their value even that day because I didn't realize at first the system was force-feeding me a number when I refreshed the page of merely what the best buy value was at that particular second when someone was dumping a huge load of Lindens on the market.

$L361 or bust, much to our chagrin. Get used to it.

No, I'm pretty certain that the value of the Linden will climb up to the $280 mark but probably not much higher until the telehub buyback flush and the bulkauction glut can siphon off. Our only hope is that the social engineers will improve group tools for business use, increasing investment and better management, and stop the land glut -- or at least balance their new land glut with improved options for selling Land on My Sim by democratizing auctions and allowing any resident to upload his land for sale to some sort of auction land page if he would rather do it that way instead of flipping it to "for sale" and leaving it to lie in the sun and hope it gets noticed among 6000 land for sale lands in the user interface.

If the Lindens are not prepared to stop their land glut -- and they seem ideologically unprepared to do this, and also addicted to increasing tier fees from temporary baby barons as a quick fix instead of stabilzing the world and getting increased tier from more established businesses -- then they will have to dream up more money sinks. Here's where I think they will get them from:

o Removal of dwell payments in Linden dollars -- an easy one to do

o Removal of this odd group dividend benefit, the payout merely for just having or being in a group. Not sure, but this seems unrelated to dwell.

o Increase of the texture upload charge.

o Increase in classified ad costs -- they got so many people willing to pay as much as $20,000 LL to be on the top of that list, and found that classifieds really do help business sales not only for them but for those placing the ads, that the price will surely go up.

o Increase in FIND PLACES ad costs -- currently only $30.

o Vanity services like changing your name, or changing your sim's name.

None of these money sinks are a solution; the only true solution is to end the land glut and also make it easier for people to get their existing Land On My Sim to market better.

I'm hoping that projects like Cyberland Equities Metaverse Stock Exchanage can help solve some of SL's economic woes by becoming attractive to investors. This can happen if LL really stays out of the way of creative solutions that residents come up with to stabilize the currency themselves.

I'm also thinking that a shame propaganda war against FIC content creators who leave vendors inworld and never buy land, never pay for a service, never spend money, never commission a build, is also a good idea, which is why I'm engaging in it : )

After all, they think it's perfectly find to engage in propaganda wars against greedy land barons, even though they pretty much pay the freight for this world, and propaganda wars against people who take out second premium accounts, even though they are primarily responsible for what premium numbers the Lindens can point to, and also upholding the required three person membership in groups that generate more income and business for everybody.

Comments

[Cocoanut]

Fix this, Prok, so I can tell who is saying what.

coco

[Prokofy Neva]

Hi, it's as fixed as it can get, unfortunately, with typepad persistently not making paragraphs, a frequent problem.

Lordfly is in regular typeface, my comments are in bold, maybe when I get home I can put the whole thing in LF or PN format.

[The Eels]

Somehow I don't think a discredited, hot-headed, and winded technical writer from NYC has any more knowledge of a virtual economy than a 23 year old, sarcastic kid.

But that's just me.

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, I'm not a "technical writer" I don't believe lol. And discredited by whom? A handful of assholes on the SL forums? That's no advertisement -- that might even be a recommendation lol. I think you meant to say "long-winded" and not "winded" but...the fact is, I think I have quite a lot of knowledge about this economy *having lived it*. It's really valuable to see it up close and personal. What's your SL name, Eels?

[The Eels]

Discredited by mundane Google searches, certainly.

And you've "lived" in the virtual economy? Stunning! Perhaps you could sign up to become one of LLab's economic advisors then, I'm sure they would just love to have you on their board of advisors.

You have no more "knowledge" about game economies than any other moron on the forums.

[Cienna Rand]

Where's your data about the accounts being all basics or non-annual premium?

[Kyrah Abattoir]

there we go she censored me ^^

[Prokofy Neva]

Cienna, um, google searches? And...what's that bout again? You're still not catching up on the FIC chatterbox and discovering that this infamous google witch-hunting of my RL name is turning up some poor unfortunat with the same name in another city charged and fired for plagiarism, which isn't me and has nothing to do with me? Or...what ARE you going on about, Cienna? Do tell.

As for living the economy, yeah, I live it. I work in it. I know it. Which is more than can be said about you, sticking your vendors out and logging off. Tell us about your investments in the world of SL, Cienna? Do you ever hire labour? Do you ever commission jobs? Do you ever give to charity? Do you do ANYTHING except extract wealth from this game from your eyeglasses in a world where people don't need them to see? Geez.

As for your claims that there are annual subscriptions, you have GOT to be kidding. The Lindens themselves gave us the figures of only 9000 premiums back when the population was 40,000. This was a particular bugabear of mine and I pestered them until they gave us this figure, and the additional figure of 6000 out of the 9000 are landowners. Amazing, eh? But true. And that is the facts. So do the math, hon. Extrapolate. Even at a phenomenal rate, it couldn't increase to anything near the impact that LF and others claim. There is absolutely no proof that there is some vast amount or even significant number of annual subscriptions. Indeed, the challenge on YOU is to prove there are ANY. Go and poll your friends, as I have polled not only friends but random customers and strangers. Look at the world. Most people are on basics. There are a LOT of new landowners -- hundreds, maybe thousands. They aren't on annuals.

For you to ask an obdurate, stubborn-ass question like "where's your data about the accounts being all basic or all non-premium" shows you didn't even glance at what I wrote, in which I said, duh, 9000 out of the 40,000 were premiums. 22 percent. That's not 22 percent annual prescriptions, either.

Kyrah, you are talking shit as usual. Nobody "censored" you or touched your post. Don't be an ass. If you post here with your SL name you can post unmolested. It's another matter that you'll be ignored if you are an ass, which you are.

[Cienna Rand]

So, you have no data on the number of annual premiums. Thanks for answering my question promptly!

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, pay attention, Cienna, and stop being a condescending asshole and a tekkie literalist about a number, as an excuse to lose sight of the larger picture staring you in the face.

The challenge is to you, to come up with a figure for annualized subscriptions such as to prove your utter, fallacious, and idiotic claim that this tiny handful of subscriptions are inflating the Linden dollar. It can't possibly be what is inflating it -- we all know that it is the land glut, telehub buybacks, camp chairs, and other factors inflating it -- NOT the $361-priced Linden/USD rate. Please. Try to exercise a little intelligence.

Even if you yourself have an annual subscription and think, obtusely, that everyone is like you, you could just fly around the world, ask people, talk to Lindens, and find out: there just aren't that many annual subscriptions.

I know, because I don't have one, and I have accounts. I also have found a single person in my friends' list who has an annual subscription. There is no -- repeat no -- significant number of annual subscriptions that anyone can see anywhere -- except in your imagination, and the imagination of the other group-thinkers on the forums.

As I said, we have the data from the number of premiums period: When there were 40,000 members, of these, only 9000 were premiums, and of these 9000, only 6000 used their 512s up.

Now, we have 130,000. So allowing for the same percentages, i.e. 22 percent, we could reasonable assume that we have AT LEAST 28,600 premiums -- probably not more, just eyeballing the world and the auctions and the land-owners. Um, you DO fly around and eyeball the world from time to time, don't you? Hmm...I thought not! Well, I do, and let me tell you, if there are more than 28,600 premiums, i.e. people with 512 AND people who use them, I'll eat my hat.

Now, if there are ONLY 28,600 premiums and we know for an absolute fact that dozens (me and my friends) are not annualized, EVEN if we say that in fact 28,000 are all annualized -- which we're not saying -- we'd have to reason that this figure just wouldn't be enough -- in the sea of 130,000 subscriptions -- to explain any kind of inflationary factor, or to develop any kind of figure of $361 as a value that the Linden "should" plummet to. Geez, when it doesn't plummet to that figure, you look stupid, no?

Let's go over it again:

o most subscriptions are basics
o basics don't buy annual subscriptons
o only a percentage -- 22? -- of subscriptions are even on premium
o only a smaller percentage of that use their 512, i.e. spend time in the game such that they might be willing to buy an annual prescription.
o only a relatively small percentage of accounts -- a figure out of that 22 percent -- are annuals. It's just not the factor you imagine.

All of this is logical reasoning. It's not a number, but it's logical reasoning and reasonable observations to keep making the point: you are absolutely incorrect to make any claim that there are any significant number of annual subscriptions such as to pull the value of the Linden down.

Any one of the other factors I've mentioned -- land glut, telehub buyback, camp chair/dwellopers' - has a far greater impact.

I'm still trying to understand the zeal with which you people defend the concept of the $361 "inevitable" Linden, which is really ultimately about not even proving it exists, but defending your overweening and unseemly need to remove the $500 stipend.

It's really one of the most unattractive features of the creator-fascist class, this really ugly desire to strip their fellow residents of a measly $500 a week that they get for paying $9.95.

In fact, the basics can get their $2000 a month, should they wish it, by paying just $7.00 these days, $1000 is worth only $3.50 USD. Those of us paying $9.95 a month to get the same $2000 are getting ripped off, eh?

And I can only come back to the understanding of how creator-fascism works.

You only have to sell one or two pair of eyeglasses, which you may have spent a few hours to make -- months -- years ago -- in order to make $500 a week.

Therefore the concept of having to put in $500 to someone of "free money" seems absurd and even unfair to you -- even though it might appear pretty absurd to us that you can just keep selling copies of your creations endlessly, even without land, off Slexchange.com, with hardly any cost (a commission on SLEX not being that much). Endlessly, without labour, just sitting on your ass, after only an hour's work, after you took an image of the Internet half the time and slapped it on a prim.

Meanwhile, compare the labour of the people you wish to screw. Those person getting the $500 may staff a store and wear themselves out waiting on cranky customers, organize an event and struggle with griefers and laggy sims, run themselves ragged deeding videos in a rentals group -- and think of the $500 as their hard-earned money doing the job of Second Life.

Just like in RL, you made $500 just falling off a log, like a rich person earning their dividends without lifting a finger. Oh, to be sure, you had that original bright idea and that original skill to make the eyeglasses. But after making 10 pairs, you stick, them out in a vendor, and sit back and watch the cash roll in without ever having to even design a new line for this season -- new people churn and keep buying.

The person washing dishes in the kitchen of the fancy restaurant where you left the $100 tip doesn't even make that in a day, and appreciates its value more.

So I can only say, fuck you, Cienna, and try to understand the labouring, toiling, working lower and middle classes of Second Life. Leave them alone. Sell another pair of glasses and shut up.

And it's in pondering these inequities that I really have an insight into the heart of the creator-fascist class: they don't really have to work for a living and the alienation from their own product is one of their own making, because new copies of it roll off endlessly with no cost or labour to keep them connected to the world.

Yes, as I think of it, this is really the heart of the destructiveness and evil of this kind of world. People able to spend a little bit of time to create things -- and have loads of leisure time. They are able to exploit the masses who don't have the time or talent or land needed for doing or sustaining the creations. Those people have to pay an arm and a leg for the content, and have their heads chopped off if they try to have a yardsale with it, to resell it, or copy it with a cheaper knock-off.

Meanwhile, because the creator-fascists don't invest in the world -- we don't even seem to see their names featured with any kind of philanthropy to speak off -- people can't get jobs or income. They toil away, mainly paid by those with the $500 from the premiums.

It's actually a very telling thing that some of the top creators brag about being on basics and not even investing in LL or the world enough to buy the 512s.

Honestly, it's a wonder we don't all run screaming from this world.

[Cienna Rand]

I really don't give two cents about the value of play money, or your incessant moaning about things. SL is entertainment.

But if you're going to claim that there are only a miniscule amount of annual premiums compared to other premiums -- and I'm fully aware that the vast majority of the accounts are basic -- then you need more than anecdotal evidence. Like most of your claims, you have no data other than "I talked to my friends." Well, I talked to my friends, and everyone on my calling card list with a premium pays annually because it makes fiscal sense!

[Prokofy Neva]

Well, Cienna, your FIC friends -- that is...neo-FIC? Late-era FIC/SIC? Well, those Electric Sheep Peeps, think otherwise. They say SL is a job. A kewl, tekkie, groovay Internet job. Not entertainment. Of course, at that age, a job *is* entertainment, not only because of its low wages but because of all the partying and socializing you do. Still, they probably don't get as many checks from Mom and Dad as a result! So what's not to like!

Your handful of friends on your cards from the FIC with the free 4096s and such have annual accounts with good reason, especially if it made them charter members with free 4096s for life! Geez. That's no indicator. Annual accounts are in a very distinct minority. So are premiums. Deal with it. You're wrong, and thinking otherwise reveals you to be insular and pig-headed : )

[Nobody Fugazi]

Heh. I went googling for information and I find this - which has lots of keywords but no information.

Oh, but look where I am.

[Prokofy Neva]

Lordfly couldn't have been more wrong about his prediction that we were going to "$361 or bust". We never got there lol.

I was absolutely right on all accounts:

"They were able to scream loud, long, and hard about gouging land barons and scare the Lindens out of doing something they should have done -- let land find its value naturally, stop producing it like pancakes, and let demand of barons and individual buyers trigger land manufacturing and not visa versa. They were afraid to do it -- and still are, despite their avowed claim of only having "on-demand" $1000 auctions now."

We're still at that situation, only now it is complicated by a) Supply Linden selling millions of empty, printed millions lowering Linden dollar value; and b) the Lindens selling servers as fixed-price islands to meet island-order demand, meaning that scarce servers aren't sent to the mainland auctions, where the Lindens prefer the "market" (the oligarchy distribution and market-share allocation system) sell one sim for $3400 instead of two sims for $1700.