Some sellers are devaluing lindens. You're ruining it for everyone!

[Andi Ghostaltar]

Hey all!

I've been on sl for a long time now, and its getting really frustrating how some linden sellers are devaluing lindens. 

STOP SELLING YOUR LINDENS CHEAP!

If everyone listened to what I just said we would ALL get a better price for our hard work and receive the money fast.

At the time of writing this lindens are at 261 to the dollar, thats rediculous! Why are you selling so cheap?

I know you want your lindens fast, but if everyone did what you are doing eventually the prie of lindens will plumet to 1linden to the dollar lol.

STOP LISTENING TO NONSENSE BLOG POSTS!

The problem may lie in the fact that most of you dont know how the market works, but its probably more likely that you are impatient and dont care how much you earn.

Well, I do care how much I earn and I also want my money fast. I also want everyone to make a better income. The only way we can do this is if we all look at the market properly.

STOP TRYING TO UNDERCUT. you're just damaging yourself. Everytime someone undercuts, the price of lindens gets worse, so why do it?

Please, if you are thinking of selling lindens, sell at 248-250 lindens to the dollar. If everyone did this the value of L's will be more stable. If you dont listen, then you will completly kill the market, and It wont be worth anyones time to make products.

Once again, please sto undercutting to get your money faster, its a terrible strategy.

Phew, rant over!

 

p.s. sorry for any spelling or gramatical errors

 

[Pamela Galli]

Easier said than done. My entire income is from my SL store. I hold onto my Lindens as long as I can but at some point I have to sell.

BTW, there are already threads about this. It is very upsetting to many.

[Iren Tinkel]

I keep mine at 245. I dont want to share in these games. And it is not merchants i think. It is more complex. Some players, or maybe even Lindens. Buy orders part is way small, looks like nobody wants to buy lindens but day volume is still 80-90, stays the same. It looks like fooling, so i pass.

[Andi Ghostaltar]

Thanks for the comments peeps!

I hear what your saying.

This is how I see the population of sl...

• Long time residents who work for their L's
• Long time residents that don't know how to make L's so have to buy
• Short term residents or "tourists" who may buy a few L's but more likley not to

This means that most of our economy is resting on the shoulders of long time residents. Most creators/sellers dont buy or spend L's regulary as they want to grow there pot. Shorttime residents are just checking things out and having a go and might like it, might not, so their spending is limited if at all. So its kinda left mainly to longtime regular residents who buy L's.

A problem occurs. If sl isnt growing new longtime residents that cant make L's so have to buy, then the economy is relying on a small pool of long time residents who by now have a huge inventory and spend less because of it.

Then selling your lindens takes forever so you try to undecut the price so you sell faster, because any money is better than no money.

If the price dropped from say 260 to 250, the buyer wouldn't really feel it because they buy in smaller quantities. But for people selling in millions or 100's of thousands it  would make a big difference.

I like SL a lot, but I think it need overhauling to bring it more upto date and be more in line with todays software and design.

Do any of you feel like its a bit dated now?

Sorry for the long comment lol

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Andi Ghostaltar wrote:

...

I like SL a lot, but I think it need overhauling to bring it more upto date and be more in line with todays software and design.

Do any of you feel like its a bit dated now?

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This is why LL is building Sansar, although a lot of creators won't migrate there.

They do have a team working on improving SL but it's small and they only have time to do so much.

[thimblemunch]

People undercut cause it sells faster. It's simple free market business logic. If someone is making something and charging more then it's worth then someone else will come and beat that price.

There should never be a set standard pricing in a system, I know you won't believe me cause your a creator and probably loosing money cause of your prices but for me someone who just codes and plans putting things on the marketplace, I will be undercutting every person I get the chance to cause I know I can sell more that way. I also don't see any problem with that, as it is a free market economy.

This is Second Life, it's a game that has a virtual economy backed with real money value. It is also a game that has been on a steady decline of users for years now. This is clearly the reason why L$ has declined... It's called supply and demand and since there is not as much demand, LL is lowering the cost of supply to cover their asses financially.

I really feel the price of L$ has absolutely nothing to do with the marketplace pricing.

[Monti Messmer]

Hello,

yes it is outdated, no matter that mesh is here ...

But, no one has an interest in update it - one reason is that "new" games need alot PC power and lots of people on SL use, well, older hardware and they cannot/want not afford new.

SL is a market, your ideas would help the RL world economy too but it´s not working there so why on here ?

Cheap sells, not even great quality helps to increase price.

Monti

[Pamela Galli]

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thimblemunch wrote:

People undercut cause it sells faster. It's simple free market business logic. If someone is making something and charging more then it's worth then someone else will come and beat that price.

There should never be a set standard pricing in a system, I know you won't believe me cause your a creator and probably loosing money cause of your prices but for me someone who just codes and plans putting things on the marketplace, I will be undercutting every person I get the chance to cause I know I can sell more that way. I also don't see any problem with that, as it is a free market economy.

This is Second Life, it's a game that has a virtual economy backed with real money value. It is also a game that has been on a steady decline of users for years now. This is clearly the reason why L$ has declined... It's called supply and demand and since there is not as much demand, LL is lowering the cost of supply to cover their asses financially.

I really feel the price of L$ has absolutely nothing to do with the marketplace pricing.

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You don't know what you are talking about, as you would if you have watched the erratic behavior over the last few months. Like, someone consistently putting in large orders several levels BELOW the current lowest, on a daily basis. Watch for a couple of hours and see.  If, say, there are best sale orders at 254, someone places several millions for sale at 258! Over and over. Read some of the older threads before you start lecturing those who have been watching this for months. We know how a currency exchange works, have used the Lindex for years before this began.

[Iren Tinkel]

Market business logic rofl. To put million lindens for 260 if there is just 100 000 within 254 and 259 which can be sold in 2 minutes. Naive! Thats why we have situation like that - people just believe it is Market business logic.

[Rhonda Huntress]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

Read some of the older threads before you start lecturing those who have been watching this for months. We know how a currency exchange works, have used the Lindex for years before this began.

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But I watch for these kinds of threads so I know a good time to buy!  It's not every day you can get 274 LIN/USD in under an hour ...

[Andi Ghostaltar]

Sorry, my title may be a bit confusing. I'm talking about linden sellers on the linden exchange rather than marketplace sellers (one in the same really).

I know about supply and demand, but the way people are selling lindens is damaging the echange. In the real world if this kind of trading was happing on the same level the worlds econmy would crash. I'm sure the only reason it hasnt colapsed on sl is because Linden labs props it up from time to time, much like the govenments of rl.

Sorry for the confusing title

[Andi Ghostaltar]

Just took a look at the market. There is nearly 100,000,000 on 257 and 10,000,000 on 258 and rising. People are placeing their L's at 258 - 260 coz they see that huge number at 257. There is about 30,000,000 between 256 and 250. We need to hold back so we can start burning through the lot at 257. Once we get past that hill, we should see it get back towards 250 pretty quick if people are patient.

But, it looks like we are in for another spike as 258 gets more sell orders. 

Why is everyone placing on 257 when there is only 30,000,000 between 256 and 250? That order will never get filled and the value will drop even more. Its looking like it will go back up to 260-264 in the coming days/weeks and those at 257 will still have to wait longer. Wouldnt it make more sense to cancel your sell orders at 257 and place them on 250? That way we ave more chance of seeing a value increase faster? Not looking good.

Im no expert at this so any info you can sare would be awesome.

[Pamela Galli]

Again: If your business is a hobby then you can afford to delay selling, but if you depend on your income to pay bills, YOU HAVE TO SELL. 

[Andi Ghostaltar]

I hear what you're saying. But the amount of people who rely on sl as a full time income and to pay bills is very small.

Relying soley on sl for income is a huge risk seeing as its user base is declining. Thats even more reason to take steps to help the market recover. 

For most sl is only one income stream, and if people keep undercutting, you will have to wait for your order to fill anyway. So Id encourage people to take a small delay in cashing out so that the market can stablise and you earn more in the long run. The cheaper you sell lindens the harder you have to work at the end of the day.

But you are right tho, its just to complex to bother thinking about lol might as well sell at anyprice

[Klytyna]

Markets 101 - To convince people to buy your stuff, you have to make it worth their while.

 

If I wanted to BUY linden, i could click a button in my viewer and buy from the Printers, LL at 250, or i can mess about visiting the exchange to buy from a private seller, which is more trouble.

 

To compensate me for my trouble, you have to offer me a better price, so your hopes of driving the market to 250 are doomed.

 

Your competitors offer their linden for sale cheaper than you because they want to sell before you. some of them are LARGE SL companies that took out RL bankloans to pay setup costs for private sims, they have billsa to pay and are prepared to undercut your unrealistic pric e for a fast sale on their massive stock of lindens.

 

That you do not understand this convinces me you should get out of the market.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Klytyna wrote:

Markets 101 - To convince people to buy your stuff, you have to make it worth their while.

 

If I wanted to BUY linden, i could click a button in my viewer and buy from the Printers, LL at 250, or i can mess about visiting the exchange to buy from a private seller, which is more trouble.

 

To compensate me for my trouble, you have to offer me a better price, so your hopes of driving the market to 250 are doomed.

 

Your competitors offer their linden for sale cheaper than you because they want to sell before you. some of them are LARGE SL companies that took out RL bankloans to pay setup costs for private sims, they have billsa to pay and are prepared to undercut your unrealistic pric e for a fast sale on their massive stock of lindens.

 

That you do not understand this convinces me you should get out of the market.

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No, you can't. Clicking the "buy" button in the viewer is the same as a "market" buy - you don't have a fixed exchange rate.

https://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Buying-and-selling-Linden-dollars/ta-p/700107

That you do not understand this convinces me...

 

[Klytyna]

Hmmm pretty sure there was a time when you just bought ls from the labs... perhaps when they took over the lindex,

 

Or maybe that only works when buying on the MP.

 

However the main point still stands... offer a worse deal, get undercut, markets 101, claiming that everyone should screw their deals up to comply with your wish to run a price fixing cartel for your own amateur business tycoon wannabe trading, like the OP, is... mad.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Andi Ghostaltar wrote:

Just took a look at the market. There is nearly 100,000,000 on 257 and 10,000,000 on 258 and rising. People are placeing their L's at 258 - 260 coz they see that huge number at 257. There is about 30,000,000 between 256 and 250.

We need to hold back so we can start burning through the lot at 257. Once we get past that hill, we should see it get back towards 250 pretty quick if people are patient.

But, it looks like we are in for another spike as 258 gets more sell orders. 

Why is everyone placing on 257 when there is only 30,000,000 between 256 and 250? That order will never get filled and the value will drop even more. Its looking like it will go back up to 260-264 in the coming days/weeks and those at 257 will still have to wait longer. Wouldnt it make more sense to cancel your sell orders at 257 and place them on 250? That way we ave more chance of seeing a value increase faster? Not looking good.

Im no expert at this so any info you can sare would be awesome.

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You are ignoring the ability of the central bank (i.e. Linden Lab) to influence the market. If a Linden sales shortage causes the exchange rate to rise to a point higher than they want they have an unlimited ability to sell/print Lindens to lower it. Over the past year it's obvious that the exchange rate has been controlled.

No, it's not a free market. It's not a free market in RL either. For those who wish it was, perhaps they're nostalgic for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907.

[Pamela Galli]

We have been discussing this for months.  It's not a question of a bunch of people suddenly deciding to sell cheap. Here is just one of several threads that might enlighten you:

 

https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Who-sell-lindens-like-this/m-p/3052901/highlight/true#M56509

[sirhc DeSantis]

I believe that rate you are on about can be found here (updates every 15 minutes?)

http://secondlife.com/httprequest/homepage.php

[Iren Tinkel]

Well, for now there is kinda regulation. Buy orders side doesnt want to put on 267 but Sell orders are filled very fast and tend to get linden more expensive but some power doesnt let it. So personally I feel regulation by putting at 258 in Sell orders side to keep difference 10 ponts between Sell and Buy part. WHat the heck? I dont understand, it is silly. Looks like Buy orders for 268 are filled very slow. So how they get day volume around 80 mln? Where is Linden Lab dollars? Where they sell them? How it is counted? if Lindex is independent from Linden Lab why Linden Lab instant rates depend on Lindex rate? Maybe I look like fool but I dont understand all this.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

LL can place their finger on the 'scale' at any time to either stabilize the market or to increase their profits from the fees they charge to cash out, and buy.  Sansar is costing them big time so it's not a surprise they are probably putting their finger on the scale for the latter reason.  This article does a pretty good job in explaining how they can do this: http://wp.dgp4sl.com/2016/05/math-behind-lindex/  A word of warning though, it may make your head spin if you are bad at understanding math.

For the above reason holding off selling $L to hopefully drive the market so it is more favorable to the seller is a useless exercise if LL decides to just press their finger down more on the scale to maintain their cash flow.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Klytyna wrote:

Hmmm pretty sure there was a time when you just bought ls from the labs... perhaps when they took over the lindex,

 

Or maybe that only works when buying on the MP.

 

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Except during the very very early days of SL before the economy got going, you never have bought $L's from LL.  You always have bought them from people selling their $L.

The Marketplace prices are set buy the sellers.  LL has nothing to do with this.  LL get's the money when you make a purchase and pays 95% of it to the merchant and keeps the remaining 5% as their commission, which is a set fee. This happens instantaneously except when the MP is having issues paying merchants. You are neither buying or selling $L by making a MP purchase. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Iren Tinkel wrote:

Well, for now there is kinda regulation. Buy orders side doesnt want to put on 267 but Sell orders are filled very fast and tend to get linden more expensive but some power doesnt let it. So personally I feel regulation by putting at 258 in Sell orders side to keep difference 10 ponts between Sell and Buy part. WHat the heck? I dont understand, it is silly. Looks like Buy orders for 268 are filled very slow. So how they get day volume around 80 mln? Where is Linden Lab dollars? Where they sell them? How it is counted? if Lindex is independent from Linden Lab why Linden Lab instant rates depend on Lindex rate? Maybe I look like fool but I dont understand all this.

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If you do the math, you'll notice that a "Market Buy" of Lindens will give you the exchange rate of the best open Limit Sell, and a "Market Sell" will buy give you the exchange rate of the best Limit Buy.

Far more individuals buy Lindens than sell Lindens, and they overwhelmingly use "Market Buy" - there's a button for it in the viewer, it's the default option on the web page and limit buying isn't given a lot of publicity to the general SL public.

According to this chat (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/History_of_Second_Life/LindeX_Chatlog) the Lindex was designed to have an exchange rate that would require the Lab to constantly put new Lindens in circulation - one would assume they are sold using "Limit Sell" because someone is providing Lindens at the Limit Buy figures or else nobody would use that system and few civilians who are savvy enough to have Linden income to sell would sell that far under the market.

This makes it appear that Limit Sells are bought by SL residents whose orders won't show up on the market board and Limit Buys are bought directly from Linden Lab.

[ChinRey]

I've been following this thread with interest but not participated in it until now. A coupe of stray comments in no particular order:

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Pamela Galli wrote:You don't know what you are talking about, as you would if you have watched the erratic behavior over the last few months.

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I think "erratic" is a very good description. Fluctuations are only to be expected but the overall pattern looks weird. It looks a bit like somebody's deliberately manipulating the market but the way it happens it's very hard to see how anybody can benefit significantly from it. I'm almost tempted to believe somebody is playing with the exchange rate for "fun".

As Darrius pointed out in his blog, Linden Lab could actually have benefitted from an unstable market in the short term and it may be worth noticing that it all started around the time when they obviously had some serious cash flow issues. But the long term effect of such an operation would be negative and quite unpredictable. In a worst case scenario it might even had been the end of the company. I find it very hard to believe they were both desperate enough and cynical enough to try something like that.

 

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Monti Messmer wrote:

But, no one has an interest in update it - one reason is that "new" games need alot PC power and lots of people on SL use, well, older hardware and they cannot/want not afford new.

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A bit off topic but a modern vritual reality doesn't necessarily need to have higher hardware requirements than Second Life.

 

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Andi Ghostaltar wrote:

Sorry, my title may be a bit confusing. I'm talking about linden sellers on the linden exchange rather than marketplace sellers (one in the same really).

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I think Pamela already answered that but the two go together. Marketplace sales are in Linden dollars so the actual income from an MP store depends a lot on the exchange rate.

 

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Andi Ghostaltar wrote:

Relying soley on sl for income is a huge risk seeing as its user base is declining.

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Yes, it's definitely not something that should be recommended to anybody today. But some merchants already have well established stores with a well established customer base and it makes a lot of sense for them to try to keep it going for as long as possible.

 

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

This makes it appear that Limit Sells are bought by SL residents whose orders won't show up on the market board and Limit Buys are bought directly from Linden Lab.

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That may well be the case. LL obviously needs a way to reguate the amount of L$ on the market. There are "natural" ways of doing this, money drains like upload fees, advertising fees and L$ locked away in inactive accounts and fresh supplies like premium stipends and LL's games with Linden prizes. Ideally these should balance each other out but that is never going to happen of course.