Inflation is good for us

I am gainfully employed:

Yes. And I work hard for the money.	36.2%	[ 51 ]
Nope.	63.8%	[ 90 ]
Total Votes:			[ 141 ]

[Cosette Rozenn de Bourbon]

Gather round children, yous gonna learn something today.... cool

So I was skipping around Gaia today, trying to reacquaint myself with everything since I've been gone for like a year and I was investigating this month's monthly collectibles to see if I want one. This is when I had my epiphany....

My first reaction was "ASKJSF!!! How can a monthly collectible be like 100 mill!" Then I saw that cute little star at the top. You know the one that tells you, "This item can be bought from monthly collectibles for only $2.50." And I was like, hell, I'll just buy it, $2,50 is like nothing! I spend more at Starbucks.

There, that reaction right there, is why Gaia has no desire to curb inflation. Which, most people are treating as established fact.... But, if you don't ...You see, as much as we (well most of us) all love Gaia, they are a corporation, and a corporation's first duty is to its shareholders to maximize profit (If you don't agree go read this United States Supreme Court Case and then post how you don't believe that's true. Go on, I'll wait.) The reaction I just had is what they want us to have. Because the bigger the gold sticker shock, the bigger the drive to GIVE THEM MONEY. Which, uh, is a really awesome thing from their perspective.

And, from our perspective, it's a really awesome thing. Yes, I know, I blaspheme. But follow my logic here, if you're over 13 in most states you can work. Federal minimum wage is like $7 or so. So if you work just about fifteen minutes you can buy yourself a monthly collectible. To get enough gold to do so... would take a lot longer than fifteen minutes unless your a marketplace wizard. You see for most of us, being given the option to buy decreases grind and increases our profitability i.e. if I work fifteen minutes I get one item, if I spend an hour getting it for free on Gaia, I've lost that opportunity to earn $7 and only gotten something worth $2.50. You actually wind up losing $4.50 if you play the game "for free."

Edit: I am making and recongize I am making the following assumptions about the majority userbase: (1) they do not have concerns like paying for life essentials due to age, as this page is marketed to 13+; and (2) they live in the United States (or UK or Australia, etc) since the website is in English.

TLDR: Gaia makes bank because inflation forces us to buy things, which is good for them AND US. Yeah, I know crazy.

Discuss!

[AsterKurayami]

Pretty sure there are tons of topics almost exactly like this every week.
(That's the only reason there wont be much discussion)

But I'll indulge the discussion topic.
Yep. This is absolutely the point.
Let's take a fill in the blank look at the tactics.

Make it so that....

~ gold is worthless and it will be "easier" for some people to ~
~ there are exclusives you can only get with cash and people will ~
~ items are limited, creating a false sense of demand and people will ~
~ items appear cheaper than actually are and people will ~
~ there's a slim change to win something amazing (tickets, wings, halos, whatever)~

...spend real money.

[Cosette Rozenn de Bourbon]

AsterKurayami

Pretty sure there are tons of topics almost exactly like this every week.
(That's the only reason there wont be much discussion)

But I'll indulge the discussion topic.
Yep. This is absolutely the point.
Let's take a fill in the blank look at the tactics.

Make it so that....

~ gold is worthless and it will be "easier" for some people to ~
~ there are exclusives you can only get with cash and people will ~
~ items are limited, creating a false sense of demand and people will ~
~ items appear cheaper than actually are and people will ~
~ there's a slim change to win something amazing (tickets, wings, halos, whatever)~

...spend real money.

Pretty sure I didn't see any on the forum. stare But just thank you oh so much for indulging me.

You have anything worth saying about the fact that it is good for US USERS AS WELL?

[kanji96]

The only good thing I've seen from it so far is the fact that they re-hired some of the community's favourite artists with the money they earned. However, they obviously still need people on the tech team to solve weird glitches like the Loyal's Bazaar counter and the disappearing wish lists. I just hope that they're spending all that cash they got from their users wisely, instead of putting it on useless things.

[Cosette Rozenn de Bourbon]

Enigmatic Conspiracy

The only good thing I've seen from it so far is the fact that they re-hired some of the community's favourite artists with the money they earned. However, they obviously still need people on the tech team to solve weird glitches like the Loyal's Bazaar counter and the disappearing wish lists. I just hope that they're spending all that cash they got from their users wisely, instead of putting it on useless things.

That's good to hear that they are doing that. Would you know who they rehired?

[Boba Connoisseur]

To be fair, there are threads like this all the time now, though they don't always ask for discussion...despite this being GCD.

I rarely post in GCD, but I can say I think a lot of discussion you'll have here won't be very indulgent or good (?) as a lot of it will probably be negative discussion.

Putting that aside though, if every user could have the disposable income to afford GC, even the smallest of GC, I think inflation wouldn't be as bad, but most users don't have that so it won't happen. Inflation isn't really bad when you do have money, but when you don't, it sucks.

Everything the last user said is right as well, but I have to say, I like your point about losing out the opportunity to make an hour of minimum wage. I think like that all the time in real life, less so here though.

[kanji96]

Cosette Rozenn de Bourbon

Enigmatic Conspiracy

The only good thing I've seen from it so far is the fact that they re-hired some of the community's favourite artists with the money they earned. However, they obviously still need people on the tech team to solve weird glitches like the Loyal's Bazaar counter and the disappearing wish lists. I just hope that they're spending all that cash they got from their users wisely, instead of putting it on useless things.

That's good to hear that they are doing that. Would you know who they rehired?

So far I think they re-hired PRISM. Can't remember if there was anyone else they re-hired. You can go to her journal and read the entries to have a look at some of the items she has designed for Gaia. She designed the first set of Rococo items.

[Leithia]

Yes, Gaia needs profit, every business does, but they also need customers in order to make profit. And if you continuously ignore said customers to keep pushing things they don't like ( gold generators, in this case, which cause said inflation ), over things they DO like ( item generators, general re-releases of items, and new items ), you're only going to push your customer base away, therefor losing profit.

You may say it's good for them and us, but you're also forgetting not every Gaian user has tons of disposable income. It's good for the people who have said disposable income, but those who have kids, rent, food, car, internet, and other bills to be concerned about first, it can be on the "not good" side. The fact users are being pretty much ignored in their distaste for inflation only creates a larger userbase less willing to spend, because generally, people don't like giving their hard earned money to anything that disregards their opinions as a potential customer.

I've never been against buying GC, and in my 9 years on the site, I've probably spend a grand total of $1000+ over those 9 years. However my wallet has been pretty sealed shut these past few months, because why give my money to a website that seems to only care about what money in my wallet they can possible wrangle from me today, tomorrow, and next week, and not that I would rather play tons and tons of item generators, than play a gold generator.

[Cosette Rozenn de Bourbon]

Boba Connoisseur

To be fair, there are threads like this all the time now, though they don't always ask for discussion...despite this being GCD.

I rarely post in GCD, but I can say I think a lot of discussion you'll have here won't be very indulgent or good (?) as a lot of it will probably be negative discussion.

Putting that aside though, if every user could have the disposable income to afford GC, even the smallest of GC, I think inflation wouldn't be as bad, but most users don't have that so it won't happen. Inflation isn't really bad when you do have money, but when you don't, it sucks.

Everything the last user said is right as well, but I have to say, I like your point about losing out the opportunity to make an hour of minimum wage. I think like that all the time in real life, less so here though.

Admitedly, I do assume that everyone has the opportunity to work at least some sort of minimum wage job, but on the whole I think that more users than not have a job... which would be an interesting poll to institute.

[AsterKurayami]

Cosette Rozenn de Bourbon

AsterKurayami

Pretty sure there are tons of topics almost exactly like this every week.
(That's the only reason there wont be much discussion)

But I'll indulge the discussion topic.
Yep. This is absolutely the point.
Let's take a fill in the blank look at the tactics.

Make it so that....

~ gold is worthless and it will be "easier" for some people to ~
~ there are exclusives you can only get with cash and people will ~
~ items are limited, creating a false sense of demand and people will ~
~ items appear cheaper than actually are and people will ~
~ there's a slim change to win something amazing (tickets, wings, halos, whatever)~

...spend real money.

Pretty sure I didn't see any on the forum. stare But just thank you oh so much for indulging me.

You have anything worth saying about the fact that it is good for US USERS AS WELL?

You are so very welcome.

You didn't see them because if those topics are her in GCD they have a tendency of getting buried or moved to CB where they're buried.

The positive points to all this inflation is that increased revenue= rehired artists and new artists.
Bara-chan is one that's back. She did the art for that new demon bundle.

Gold has become so "worthless" to a lot of people that generosity is more prominent.
People are so nice these days and not limited to the charity thread, they're everywhere.

[Boba Connoisseur]

Cosette Rozenn de Bourbon

Admitedly, I do assume that everyone has the opportunity to work at least some sort of minimum wage job, but on the whole I think that more users than not have a job... which would be an interesting poll to institute.

I think everyone has an opportunity to work. There are always opportunities and baring if one lives in a very small area with little job availability, if you live in the city, there should be work available. That's a whole other ballpark of a topic though, suffice to say, if more users had the disposable income, I certainly think the reaction to Gaia being pushier about their marketing would have been a bit more subdued.

[Cosette Rozenn de Bourbon]

AsterKurayami

...

I did notice a pick up in generosity on one of threads here. It would be a nice secondary effect if that became more prominent again. It's my understanding that back in the "good ol' days" it was rampant, but that was before my time, so I can't say.

[Cosette Rozenn de Bourbon]

Boba Connoisseur

. . .

Leithia

. . .

Leithia made a good point along those lines that there is a difference between being employed and having disposable income. Given that this is a site targeted for the younger individual (no judgment, I say that being an old user) I assume that they won't have concerns like rent, food, and dependent children to put first.

[Rhiandra]

Not everyone is from the US.
Not every country uses US Dollars as their currency.
1 Dollar = S/. 2.78
1 Dollar = 13 Mexican Pesos.
etc.
A couple of dollars could very well put me through the day, ffs.

Not everyone is from the US, and there are certain countries where you won't be able to work at 13, and certainly minimum wage isn't the same in every country.

And it's not that easy to get GC if you're not from the US.

So saying that inflation benefits the users is ignoring a huge part of the gaian community.

[Leithia]

Cosette Rozenn de Bourbon

Leithia made a good point along those lines that there is a difference between being employed and having disposable income. Given that this is a site targeted for the younger individual (no judgment, I say that being an old user) I assume that they won't have concerns like rent, food, and dependent children to put first.

I've never really considered Gaia a young persons site, I tend to think of a lot simpler sites like neopets of club penguin as kids sites.

And if they were truly targeting younger individuals, I don't think the cash push would be so strong, because not every 13-18 year old has a job, granted that you CAN get a job, not everyone is willing to hire a 13-18 year old because 1) lack of maturity, so they could be calling off often 2) lack of responsibility, and only want to goof off at a job, 3) can't handle the job physically, or 4) have school, therefor an inflexible schedule, and so many places now want you to be at their beck and call so they can call you out of the blue whenever they need someone to fill in. Especially in the still highly competitive job market, even for the lower-skill jobs like the fast food industry.

And no, I'm not trying to be insulting to teenagers in any way, shape or form, but these are things I'VE been told previously when interviewing potential new employees. Age is a factor while hiring, though they can't intentionally discriminate against a younger person, they're more likely to hire the older person who doesn't have a conflicting school schedule, has previous job history, ect, while interviewing.