Linden Dollar Increase Threatens Second Life's Impulse-Driven Economy (Comment of the Week)

While many readers are dismissive of concerns over Linden Lab's increase of L$ purchase fees, Clara Seller points out a subtle problem:

It's the intimate relationship between Linden Lab and a person's credit card that keeps all of this going. This comment thread is being very condescending to those who have become the lowest on the Second Life social food chain. The social food chain isn't the real power of the economy. It's just the pretend one created by the most visible residents.

Impulse buying is everything. Kill it at the peril of of everything. Without impulse buying, you just have a fruitless small town of big egos like Sansar.

The last thing you want is to force your little people to think about spending their money on "nothing". School them and talk down to them until they wake up. Then it's "game over" for everyone.

Maybe not "game over", but she's right that even a small price increase can cause many people to reconsider where they spend their discretionary income. It's why, for example, that free-to-play mobile games -- despite being loaded down with intrusive ads and constant IAP offers -- are much more popular than premium mobile games. Even putting a $1.99 or 99 cent price tag on an app causes most consumers to clutch their wallet.

Comments

[irihapeti]

when discussing with people on low incomes about how they can maximise their budgets, I always find it odd when someone else jumps in and lectures us on being condescending and showing little empathy for the poor.

when we have little money then we have little money. Is no way around this other than work out how to increase our income. When we can't then we make do. We budget as best we can.

and that means those of us with low incomes have to make choices in what we do buy, this is normal. As is discussion on how we can budget better what income we do have

impulse buying is what hurts low income people more than anything

from a real world perspective its nuts to argue: Lets make it cheaper for low income people to impulse buy in SL

[Clara Seller]

I think it's a mistake to assume this is about "low income" people. I've found that people of all incomes generally hate being "milked" and respond in the same way. It's easy to overlook that many of these "little people" in SL have much larger RL incomes than the most celebrated SL merchants and land owners.

The "little people" may have different priorities. They may be business owners, accountants, sales people, and work with real budgets every day of their life. Maybe they have a healthy outlook on how much they can reasonably justify spending on a fantasy game.

Fifty dollars a month doesn't necessarily buy you a luxurious second life and that's what is insane. Customers who are willing to spend $600.00 a year on a game shouldn't be dismissed as stupid "low incomers" who need to put themselves on a spending leash and live a frugal life.

There just may be a line to how far the inworld elitist fantasy can be pushed onto the real world before it backfires.

[Bet]

The increase in buying Linden fee aside, the estimate of how long it takes to fill limit orders is a joke.

Few weeks ago, the big blob to purchase was at 262, less than 500,000 sitting at 261. So I place an order for 262 (mid 5 figures)- tells me 4 days. Fine. Indeed 262 was the price in the purchase box.

Well, the blob now is at 260. The 4 days is as faded as my memorial day picnic tan.

I used to jump in and get a quick fix at the 260 to tide me over, instead I decided to live out of inventory- no new purchases. See if my order is ever filled.

Just set up a system that is truthful.