Although I actually read the key metrics, I leave them for Tateru to comment on. However, this time there was an interesting comment in there:September saw a major recovery from the sudden slump in Lindex sales in August. While July had shown nearly US$600,000 in sales, August's sales had dropped to US$163,239, but recovered in September to a much healthier $573,501.This is, as anyone who follows my daily reports, can tell you, nonsensical at first sight. Today's report is about typical - US$59,000, which gives us monthly sales of somewhere around US$1.75 Million, rather than about US$0.5Million.
The difference lies in what they mean: LindeX sales from the monthly summary are actually supply linden sales, rather the sum of daily sales figures (which is somewhat confusing, but there you go). From Linden Labs perspective $593,501 is far healthier than $163,239, because it is, essentially, pure profit for them. From our perspective though what does it mean? Well, Supply Linden was introduced as a tool to control exchange rates, albeit only in one direction, and to keep them stable. When someone (or some subroutine more likely) notices a tendency for the L$ to strengthen too much, LL put out some L$ on the market at a suitable price. Supply increases and the price drops - in this case the drive to strengthen the L$ is abated. August was obviously a month with relatively little pressure that way, September more typical.
You can question the value, and even the ethics of this process - many people did when it was announced. Whether or not you agree with it, and despite my doubts amongst many others, the process does work. The exchange rate varies a bit of course, but floats around the L$270 mark quite reliably, and has done for as long as I've kept records and indeed for over a year now.
1. To maintain a stable economy without inflation or deflation, it is necessary to create a certain amount of debt-free currency into the pool to balance the growth in the overall availability of goods and services - assuming that the availability of goods and services is growing.
My interpretation of the drop in Supply Linden sales during the month of August is basically a sudden reduction in the growth of the market. Ergo, I see Supply Linden sales as a good measure of healthy growth. More currency is required to prevent the economy destabilizing. More currency means more growth is taking place, that is assuming it is being injected at the correct rate. Calculating it can be awfully tricky.
Posted at 10:40AM on Oct 16th 2007 by Tateru Nino