L$50 Stipend for new free accounts ends May 29

If any VTOR readers were thinking about joining Second Life — or adding an ALT account — then it would be wise to do it before May 29 because the new free account L$50 stipend is going away. Existing free accounts will continue to receive stipends. Robin Linden explains (registration required):

… effective Monday, May 29, we will no longer offer a L$50 weekly stipend to NEW basic account holders.

Existing basic account holders will continue to receive their L$50 stipend on the weeks they log in. Premium account holders, both new and existing, will be unaffected.

Linden Labs continues to make these changes with hopes to stabelize the Linden dollar which has lost 25% of its value in the last four months. This morning it is trading at L$332 for $1USD.

To give an example of the impact this has had, it used to take L$7,500 every month to pay my $25 USD tier fees. Now it takes L$9,000. If the Linden dollar value continues to erode, it will soon take L$10,000.