Why Did the LindEx Tank Over the Holidays?

[Prokofy Neva]

So from other threads, I noticed that some people, whether in business or not in SL, are absolutely convinced that "shopping behavior and sales actually decrease during the Western winter holidays" in SL and that this is "traditional" and "perennial".

Those of us who know from greater direct experience that this simply isn't true can keep arguing, and citing all kinds of data points, like more stores rented and more prims rented because merchants sell more, and more tenants adding extra homes and prims because they decorate more -- which means they bought more -- but it won't be accepted.

They will always find some argument, like "but people are using last year's Christmas decorations that they kept in a storage box all year". Or "but Prokofy, you think your business is the center of the Universe and what you see is the norm but you are living in a prim in the world as it was in 2007". I wish! The Linden was probably worth more then...

But there's another thing you can do, which is just look at the Lindex right now, and click on "30 days," and see that, um, the volume of sales of Lindens went WAY up to past the 100,000 mark after December 17. THE VOLUME. Remember that.

Oh well, facts are funny things.

I'm going to put this on my blog because this view of the Lindex disappears soon, and becomes faintly visibly only under "all" where the peaks and valleys are hard to correlate to dates.

But the LindEx -- which some of us watch closely and so know that something is "off" -- suddenly, during the height of the shopping season, devalued the Linden. VOLUME was high but not PRCE. It goes from 248, where it was for weeks, to 250 or 251 or worse (the higher that number is, the lower the Linden value because it takes more of them to equal the RL US dollar). Well, sure, volume should depress price, but not always, in this artificial setting.

If more people are buying more Lindens, the supply -- if this was the "organic" and "natural" and "free" market that the Lindens claim -- would be tighter and the value would be greater. Sure, the signals of "more sales" prompts more people not selling to sell, but these explanations are not sufficient.

We do know that the LindEx isn't that free thing claimed, or at least, not as free as claimed, although sure, it has its ups and downs in response to what you might generously call "normal" signals.

The Lindens, seeing that eager Christmas shoppers are about to be frustrated by too-expensive Lindens on automatic buys, intervene, and devalue them a little, so that people get "the same" or "more" for their money (they are worth less, but will still go further inworld because most merchants won't have managed to change prices, even those with automatic vendors easy to change globally).

So maybe they have Supply Linden -- yes, that's the name of the account, and he was visible before and isn't now -- inject some fun into the LindEx. Of course in RL, this isn't done except by tyrants like Vladimir Putin. But that's ok, the Lindens need to keep SL fun.

They can't keep it TOO fun, however, as their real customers -- the creators and merchants of SL -- aren't happy when the value drops so that when they cash out -- and now with more fees biting into their profits -- they get less and less. Well, actually as I've discovered, that unhappiness can persist for a very, very long time before the Lindens will "react".

So, you might find this a conspiracy theory, since you can't "prove it," although long ago, this was admitted by real Lindens, and even in public meetings, and there was more transparency on the whole issue. Oh, well. Let's pretend it didn't happen, and they never did that. And maybe they didn't!

But...what else could make the LindEx tank? Only an internal or external event. What would that be? There wasn't more sim crashing than usual, there wasn't any huge new change to the platform or showstopper bug, all things that historically crash the LindEx.

So...what was it?

Again, people who use the LindEx frequently, who follow it closely, have no trouble acknowledging that "something funny happened" when it was finally 248 for weeks after a bad time, and then suddenly goes to 251 when it should be a good time.

And the answer *might* be this dated December 19, right before the holiday season -- a new feature in Sansa, in VentureBeat, the most widely read media on Internet/gadget/VR etc. publications, about the competing other world Linden product -- involving designing and uploading clothes.

That's of course a big deal, as that was missing before and the avatars are not all that. Sansar steadily improves, from that big disappointing slag heap we saw when they opened up the beta last July or whenever it was, and if there is a stay-at-home retired nerd who wants to sit and correlate LindEx rates with Sansar announcement, there's a job for you.

Meanwhile, it's a good enough explanation for me, as two things might have resulted from that exciting new announcement:

o People struggling to rez out their mesh on mesh and having it bounce as they tried to put up a Christmas tree, and struggling to pick which of one of many trademarked mesh bodies/dresses/accessories they won out of a gatcha would fit on their actual avatar with its expensive mesh body before going to their New Year's Eve party, would drop all that boring and frustrating stuff and run, not walk to Sansar! Fun! New worlds can eat up hours -- days -- of time and before you know it -- whoops, it's January 23, and your credit card statements are going to fall due any day now. Better not spend on SL!

o People who don't do that stuff, but watch the larger trends because they sell the clothing or accessories or they sell the rentals for the decorating instinctively know when they see a RL media story that says "Sansar Gets Better!" that they must reach for the cash-out button as their business will soon be suffering and the LindEx will be devaluing. Some people may even have hooked up a Google news reader that delivers the stories to their Siri or Google Assistant or whatever she's called, and cries "Sell, baby, Sell!"  So they do. And that flood of frightened merchant and landlord dollars into the LindEx reduces its values. Suddenly, too many dollars want to get out the door, so they queue up in millions and millions filling up each level...248...249...250 -- if 249 is at 16 million, who will park there?

Um, yeah, merchants who made a lot of sales MIGHT want to cash out DURING the holidays so they can buy in RL! Hurray! That's what SL should be FOR! And they might want to close their books by January 1 if they are diligent. But I actually think that isn't what happened. If you make a lot of money in SL, and you see the LindEx is not at a good rate, you park at the more valued numbers because you can wait 15 or 30 days. Maybe if you need US $100 to do your last minute shopping, sure. But my point is -- the actions of those who make a lot of money are such that they make money not by suddenly cashing out in the middle of a shopping season as they don't need to do that to shop, they already have last month's cash out.

More to the point: if that behavior -- merchants cashing out in the middle of the month, even before Christmas day when they might get a lot more sales, and even before December 31, when they might get even more sales -- were "the norm" in past years in SL, we would have seen it. I never recall seeing it. But maybe someone does.

It's too bad there isn't an economist at LL who says to the PR people, "Hold off that announcement until January 3, so we don't kill our business in our first world, and when that world is shrinking due to RL credit card bills, we'll get some bounce over to Sansar."

Or maybe there is an economist, and he says "Be sure to sink the LindEx on the holidays and put out a new shiny about Sansar so we can keep working at flushing out that old world."

It's too bad there isn't an economist who says, "What new shiny can we roll out in BOTH our worlds so neither suffers at the expense of the other?" Sadly, the Lindens live in 2003 and still think a portal with them having a snowball fight in the first world is a "shiny" that will drive log-ins. Raise your hands, how many of you went to the Linden/resident snowball fight?

I just don't know how all this works because they don't tell us.

I'm happy to hear any other theories. Those theories cannot claim that this fact that shopping reduces when it doesn't. They cannot claim "all merchants cash out before Christmas" unless *they themselves did that* and can testify to that behavior *personally*.

Because we have the traditional high volume of Linden dollar sales -- proof of shopping (unless somebody thinks people buy to store Lindens in a box until January). But we also have a non-traditional Linden devaluation which needs explanation. Cashout to RL by nervous SL merchants who are poor shoppers before December 25 cannot explain this.

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I'm happy to hear any other theories. Those theories cannot claim that this fact that shopping reduces when it doesn't. They cannot claim "all merchants cash out before Christmas" unless *they themselves did that* and can testify to that behavior *personally*.

Because we have the traditional high volume of Linden dollar sales -- proof of shopping (unless somebody thinks people buy to store Lindens in a box until January). But we also have a non-traditional Linden devaluation which needs explanation. Cashout to RL by nervous SL merchants who are poor shoppers before December 25 cannot explain this.

 

The fee for cashing out Lindens changed from 1.5% to 2.5% on January 3 so merchants who cash out were converting all the Lindens they could before just before the fees increased.

 

Edited January 22, 2018 by Theresa Tennyson

[Callum Meriman]

Likely what Theresa says, but I will add a communist conspiracy! Not the Russians either, but the Chinese...

Recall late 2016 the sell was up at 270 for a sustained period with the buy at 280, then just before Christmas 2016 it stopped and fell back, finally returning to the long term 248? That was done by placing a few million at each point, and keeping it there. Pure market manipulation.

When the sell went to 270 many private estates bumped up their rents, Anshe for example took her homesteads from 6500 to 7500.

The "blip" could be the FIC warning someone not-FIC - "drop your rents below 7500 and I will do it again".

 

Edited January 22, 2018 by Callum Meriman
one day i will lern to spel

[Prokofy Neva]

3 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

The fee for cashing out Lindens changed from 1.5% to 2.5% on January 3 so merchants who cash out were converting all the Lindens they could before just before the fees increased.

 

But that's January 3, Theresa. January 3 comes AFTER December 17, when the crashing starts and continues through what should be the shopping system.

And even if they have the NEWS of this before January 3 -- and they DID, as far as I recall -- the difference is NOT so great as to really be a driver for the BIG merchants who have huge volumes. Sure, I'm happy to say it had SOME effect. But doesn't explain enough about that drop.

A one-percent different in cash-out fees just isn't that big a deal: $500 is $492.50 with 1.5% as a fee, and 2.5% is $487.50. I don't think the savings of $5 is enough. Because merchants aren't stupid -- they know that behavior only makes their next cashout which might be as soon as next week only worse for them.

If your theory was true, we'd see this vast improvement after January 3, when -- going by your theory -- cashouts would "stop" because ohnoes, the sticker price. But it didn't improve by more than a point. It didn't improve in the way Callum just recalled from the Anshe episode.

It just doesn't make sense. SL is in some sense "a nation of shop-keepers" with lots of small holders -- but the real movers of the economy are giant actors, with 100 plus sim empires made up of private islands, or created content that earns them in the tens of thousands of real dollars.

You're also forgotten something about the little guys, and I'm really one of them. Why would I hurry to cash out my Lindens at "better" rates, when some of the purpose of my cashout is to pay tier! So, wait, instead of leaving my Lindens  to cashout WITHOUT ANY WITHDRAWAL FEE to PAY TIER, I'm going cash out, save $5, but then have to use live money outside of SL to pay tier, not devalued Lindens cashed out as soon as they need to be? MAKES NO SENSE.

The Lindens never tell us that figure of how much of this vaunted $475 million revenue in the hands of users in fact comes TO THEM AS TIER, but it is HUGE.

But...Pay no tier before its time! Why leave live, real money up on the Lindens' web page for two or three weeks, not working, when I could at least have it in Acorn or some low-percent savings account, or paying RL bills so that penalties don't accrue. Makes no sense for me as a little guy, surely the big breeder bosses would think this way.

I have often found out that even big name brands and big money-makers can be very clueless about how financial systems work and how their own finances should be managed -- it's all a game. Even so, somebody selling weapons or breedables for 10 years is going to be very savvy about how they do this.

I agree with Callum's assessment that it is market manipulation at play -- by Lindens or big players -- with big stacks parked at various levels, blocking exits. These can be called to flood at any time, or called in to get better rates later, or left to get better rates. What makes people behave that way? Not the cashout fee, and not even Sansar but still more factors I am trying to find.

 

 

 

[Pamela Galli]

 

It’s not the raise in percent that makes such a difference, but that the cap went from $25 to $250. For example, cashing out $5000 previously coast $25, now it costs $125. (And the cap used to be even less, $15,,iirc.)

Edited January 22, 2018 by Pamela Galli

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

But that's January 3, Theresa. January 3 comes AFTER December 17, when the crashing starts and continues through what should be the shopping system.

And even if they have the NEWS of this before January 3 -- and they DID, as far as I recall -- the difference is NOT so great as to really be a driver for the BIG merchants who have huge volumes. Sure, I'm happy to say it had SOME effect. But doesn't explain enough about that drop.

A one-percent different in cash-out fees just isn't that big a deal: $500 is $492.50 with 1.5% as a fee, and 2.5% is $487.50. I don't think the savings of $5 is enough. Because merchants aren't stupid -- they know that behavior only makes their next cashout which might be as soon as next week only worse for them.

If your theory was true, we'd see this vast improvement after January 3, when -- going by your theory -- cashouts would "stop" because ohnoes, the sticker price. But it didn't improve by more than a point. It didn't improve in the way Callum just recalled from the Anshe episode.

It just doesn't make sense. SL is in some sense "a nation of shop-keepers" with lots of small holders -- but the real movers of the economy are giant actors, with 100 plus sim empires made up of private islands, or created content that earns them in the tens of thousands of real dollars.

You're also forgotten something about the little guys, and I'm really one of them. Why would I hurry to cash out my Lindens at "better" rates, when some of the purpose of my cashout is to pay tier! So, wait, instead of leaving my Lindens  to cashout WITHOUT ANY WITHDRAWAL FEE to PAY TIER, I'm going cash out, save $5, but then have to use live money outside of SL to pay tier, not devalued Lindens cashed out as soon as they need to be? MAKES NO SENSE.

The Lindens never tell us that figure of how much of this vaunted $475 million revenue in the hands of users in fact comes TO THEM AS TIER, but it is HUGE.

But...Pay no tier before its time! Why leave live, real money up on the Lindens' web page for two or three weeks, not working, when I could at least have it in Acorn or some low-percent savings account, or paying RL bills so that penalties don't accrue. Makes no sense for me as a little guy, surely the big breeder bosses would think this way.

I have often found out that even big name brands and big money-makers can be very clueless about how financial systems work and how their own finances should be managed -- it's all a game. Even so, somebody selling weapons or breedables for 10 years is going to be very savvy about how they do this.

I agree with Callum's assessment that it is market manipulation at play -- by Lindens or big players -- with big stacks parked at various levels, blocking exits. These can be called to flood at any time, or called in to get better rates later, or left to get better rates. What makes people behave that way? Not the cashout fee, and not even Sansar but still more factors I am trying to find.

 

 

 

The change of fee was for process credits - you know, real money? Cash? If you're using your dollar balance to pay your tier, I'm assuming you don't change it into real money (unless you completely don't understand economics, which I'm not ruling out.)

Merchants who take significant amounts of real-world money out have to go through two phases - first, they have to "sell" it on the Lindex, and then go through a process credit to have the money sent to Paypal, etc. They need to sell Lindens at such a time that there's enough time for the initial conversion from Lindens to dollars goes through, which may take days. That's why they started selling early. Then, many of them knew there was a possibility that the exchange rate would go down so the moment it looked like the rate started changing they pumped Lindens into the system to try to "get in before it crashes,", making it worse. Actually I'm surprised that the drop was as small as it was - they're lucky that it was compensated for by holiday Linden purchases.

Yes, this makes no economic sense given the amount of money involved. The Pavlovian reaction to anything that looks like a "tax increase" will often cause people to lose a handle on complicated things like long division.

[Prokofy Neva]

13 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

The change of fee was for process credits - you know, real money? Cash? If you're using your dollar balance to pay your tier, I'm assuming you don't change it into real money (unless you completely don't understand economics, which I'm not ruling out.)

Merchants who take significant amounts of real-world money out have to go through two phases - first, they have to "sell" it on the Lindex, and then go through a process credit to have the money sent to Paypal, etc. They need to sell Lindens at such a time that there's enough time for the initial conversion from Lindens to dollars goes through, which may take days. That's why they started selling early. Then, many of them knew there was a possibility that the exchange rate would go down so the moment it looked like the rate started changing they pumped Lindens into the system to try to "get in before it crashes,", making it worse. Actually I'm surprised that the drop was as small as it was - they're lucky that it was compensated for by holiday Linden purchases.

Yes, this makes no economic sense given the amount of money involved. The Pavlovian reaction to anything that looks like a "tax increase" will often cause people to lose a handle on complicated things like long division.

Dear, did you realize there is a fee for turning Linden dollars into real dollars AS WELL? Even if you don't cash them out?!

As for the fee to cash out for "real money cash," um, I know that, as I use the LindEx all the time and do that.

I can't imagine why you are "schooling" me here on how the LindEx when obviously I use it all the time and discuss with others all the time.

Maybe you haven't caught up with the latest -- the Lindens now cash out in record times. While they've raised their fees, they've compensated this somewhat by getting better at the cash-out, and reducing it to 3-5 business days. Once you establish credibility with you, they cash you out as which as the system allows. Given that it used to be routinely 7 or even 10 days, this is progress. And what it means is that you don't have to plan 2 weeks in advance anymore.

A big merchant doesn't cash things out "early"; she just cashes them out in a schedule. Likely she has a tier date, that may or may not be close to the end of the month, and some of the revenue has to go to tier, and the rest she cashes out to real life bills. This is likely done as a routine schedule, and something like a one-percent raise in the fee, that will add $5 to a $500 cashout may or may not force her to act any different. The problem is -- you can't know that, and can't admit it.

My point isn't that I know anything more, but that I can reason not everybody headed to the gates -- I didn't, nor did others I know, which tells me at least from a small sample that there wasn't a panic. And even if a lot did, SOMETHING ELSE happened to make it lose an entire two points for awhile, which is a lot, for any reason, and that means you have to look for other causes, like the Sansar announcement. No one thing may have caused it; it can be a cluster.

Your theory that people are smart enough to consider the rate might go down, but then not smart enough to realize their own behavior will now make it down might be believable if all of human behavior was like your Pavlovian example. But most people "get it" about their own behavior on the LindEx. What some did was park large amounts at lower numbers that they knew might take a while to burn off, but that any big surge of activity, shopping or fee related, would build activity for awhile anyway, and their big park might burn off. Others just build up tier payment supplies with now-cheaper Lindens. Sure, people continue to cash out -- they have to. But given the high volume of shopping, the dropping of 2 points has some more explanations.

The drop wasn't small. It was two points, even more. It's still two points from 248 -- which finally it got back up to in the fall. 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

16 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

 

It’s not the raise in percent that makes such a difference, but that the cap went from $25 to $250. For example, cashing out $5000 previously coast $25, now it costs $125. (And the cap used to be even less, $15,,iirc.)

The number of people attempting to cash out $5000 at one instance is very small now in SL. And even for these people, there's no hard data that they rushed to the exits like a bank panic and drove down the LindEx.

[Pamela Galli]

18 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

The number of people attempting to cash out $5000 at one instance is very small now in SL. And even for these people, there's no hard data that they rushed to the exits like a bank panic and drove down the LindEx.

My point is that if people with a lot of money on hand were in fact trying to cash out before deadline, it would be because of the cap, not the one percent raise in the fee. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Dear, did you realize there is a fee for turning Linden dollars into real dollars AS WELL? Even if you don't cash them out?!

Yes, bubbie, but THAT fee wasn't going to go up. The OTHER fee did.

As for the fee to cash out for "real money cash," um, I know that, as I use the LindEx all the time and do that.

I can't imagine why you are "schooling" me here on how the LindEx when obviously I use it all the time and discuss with others all the time.

Because you're saying things that make you look like you don't know what you're talking about.

Maybe you haven't caught up with the latest -- the Lindens now cash out in record times. While they've raised their fees, they've compensated this somewhat by getting better at the cash-out, and reducing it to 3-5 business days. Once you establish credibility with you, they cash you out as which as the system allows. Given that it used to be routinely 7 or even 10 days, this is progress. And what it means is that you don't have to plan 2 weeks in advance anymore.

But that means nothing for the FIRST half of the equation - changing Lindens into "US Dollars". The time for THAT depends on the market and the rate you want.

A big merchant doesn't cash things out "early"; she just cashes them out in a schedule. Likely she has a tier date, that may or may not be close to the end of the month, and some of the revenue has to go to tier, and the rest she cashes out to real life bills. This is likely done as a routine schedule, and something like a one-percent raise in the fee, that will add $5 to a $500 cashout may or may not force her to act any different. The problem is -- you can't know that, and can't admit it.

"Money" can be "held" in Second Life in two ways - "Lindens", which are quite liquid, and a "US Dollar Balance", which can only be used to pay Linden Lab or to convert to real money. There's no reason to keep a "US Dollar Balance" much higher than your tier fees until you're ready to cash out. With the fee schedule, especially the old one, it made more sense to hold Lindens and then cash out the largest amount possible each time.

My point isn't that I know anything more, but that I can reason not everybody headed to the gates -- I didn't, nor did others I know, which tells me at least from a small sample that there wasn't a panic. And even if a lot did, SOMETHING ELSE happened to make it lose an entire two points for awhile, which is a lot, for any reason, and that means you have to look for other causes, like the Sansar announcement. No one thing may have caused it; it can be a cluster.

Your theory that people are smart enough to consider the rate might go down, but then not smart enough to realize their own behavior will now make it down might be believable if all of human behavior was like your Pavlovian example. But most people "get it" about their own behavior on the LindEx. What some did was park large amounts at lower numbers that they knew might take a while to burn off, but that any big surge of activity, shopping or fee related, would build activity for awhile anyway, and their big park might burn off. Others just build up tier payment supplies with now-cheaper Lindens. Sure, people continue to cash out -- they have to. But given the high volume of shopping, the dropping of 2 points has some more explanations.

The drop wasn't small. It was two points, even more. It's still two points from 248 -- which finally it got back up to in the fall. 

"Two points" is a lot? Two points is less than 1% and you said that a one percent fee increase "wasn't" a lot. Anyone who cashed out at 2 points lower in December came out ahead than if they waited until January expecting to go back to the original exchange rate.

 

 

Edited January 23, 2018 by Theresa Tennyson

[Theresa Tennyson]

22 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

 

It’s not the raise in percent that makes such a difference, but that the cap went from $25 to $250. For example, cashing out $5000 previously coast $25, now it costs $125. (And the cap used to be even less, $15,,iirc.)

In other words, their effective fee went from 0.5% in December to 2.5% in January. Someone in this position would still be coming out ahead by cashing out in December even if the rate dropped 4 points and they'd still break even at 5 points. With these numbers the losers would be those whose Pavlovian reaction to an exchange rate kept them from cashing out in December instead of January.

[Prokofy Neva]

21 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

In other words, their effective fee went from 0.5% in December to 2.5% in January. Someone in this position would still be coming out ahead by cashing out in December even if the rate dropped 4 points and they'd still break even at 5 points. With these numbers the losers would be those whose Pavlovian reaction to an exchange rate kept them from cashing out in December instead of January.

Or those who simply use their revenue to pay tier, or shop inworld with the rest.

Or those who make so much money they don't care about this.

Or those who ouldn't know that they'd still come out ahead because they could have no idea how much the LindEx could go down with a thing like that.

[Prokofy Neva]

@Theresa Tennyson

Er, sweetcakes, both matter, and together, they are a disincentive for the little guy.

You should ask yourself why you're so preoccupied with whether I "look like" I know what I'm talking about, and try to think beyond 0/1.

There can often be dollars left over that are too small to be worth cashing out that someone might save to go a round on the LindEx. I can't imagine why anyone bothers to play the LindEx. But people do, and they tell me this. They buy low, sell high, you know, like RL. I once accidentally parked US $150 worth of Lindens on one account at such a low number/high value that it literally took 6 months to cash out and suddenly gave me a big surprise. I thought the Lindens were compensating us for down time or something, it was amazing until I looked at my records.

Two points is a lot if it stays at that! When it was two points better for weeks! And when it becomes three and even four some nights or days like weekends! Hello!

No one could know they would "come out ahead" because as I just mentioned, it could keep spiralling downward. Oh, unless they have insider knowledge. Hm.
 

This isn't a very interesting conversation so you are welcome to have the last word. Meanwhile, anyone who would like to discuss the LindEx mysteries can always IM me inworld or leave a comment on my blog. I've successfully made the point that a) shopping in fact went up during the holiday season as it always does, despite what some people were absolutely convinced of, and told themselves stories about for some reason; b) that there wasn't a run on the bank or a huge crash because people either make too much money to care, or don't make enough money to cash out after tier, or instead of shopping, and didn't realize it (I bet that was the case for many); c) those that thought it was "prudent" aren't so smart because they simply can't know what will happen next; d) Sansar is undoubtedly a factor, and someone should track all the Sansar press releases and the LindEx, it would be interesting!

There's this to ponder, too. Why did the Lindens raise the fees when they had months of a very poorly-performing LindEx (from the point of view of merchants, whose cashout was substantially less). Why squeeze their top customers even more??? It's odd...

 

[Rya Nitely]

But I predicted this effect on November 5. It just seemed very likely that it would happen.

and it went up to 253 before it settled a bit.

I was thinking it would lead to a short term shortage of L$ after the sell off but it's not going lower than 250, so new orders are now going in at the new price of 250 and it's staying there. Maybe only LL can move it back to 247.

 

[Rya Nitely]

I made sure I cashed out a heap in late November, and only because I thought this would happen. 

[Rya Nitely]

56 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There's this to ponder, too. Why did the Lindens raise the fees when they had months of a very poorly-performing LindEx (from the point of view of merchants, whose cashout was substantially less). Why squeeze their top customers even more??? It's odd...

Because Ebbe stated at one time that merchants make a very impressive amount of money, and he thought they should be  paying their way a bit more.