# TBT Economic Stats



## Cress (Sep 7, 2017)

Yea I'm bored
The member list can allow you to view every member on the site (not including bots like Jingle, Zipper, Resetti, etc.) and can be organized to display the members with the most TBT to the least. With that said...

TBT has 115,922 total members. This means that 1,159 members are in the top 1%. When sorted by bells, the 1,159th member is a tie between _cats_toy_ and _arianndee_, with 1,474 TBT each. If you have more than that, congrats you're in the top 1% of the richest members on the site!
Even between the top 1%, the richest member (_Truffle_, wonderful creator of the "I love JeanGiraffe!!" group. Jean pls come back ;_; ) has 48,531 more TBT than _cats_toy_ and _arianndee_. Das a lot.
Members 71,913 to 115,922 (the bottom) all have 0 total TBT. That's 44,009 broke members and make up ~38% of all members on the site.
Members 58,960 to 71,912 have between 1 and 100 TBT (inclusive). 12,952 members in this range which are ~11% of the TBT population.
Members 10,056 to 58,959 have between 101 and 1,000 TBT (inclusive again). 48,903 members here, making up ~42% of TBT.
This leaves members 1,161 to 10,055, which have between 1,001 and 1,473 TBT, the cutoff point for the top 1% (inclusive ofc). 8,894 members here, only ~8% of the population.
So almost half of the members on the site have 100 or less TBT. I thought we lived in an age where the middle class was the biggest class, not the lower. This is what capitalism was meant to prevent. #TBTisAnOligarchy
Remember that this doesn't include any deposited bells. Most likely, not all 44,009 members on the bottom are genuinely broke, it's just that they deposited all of their TBT (ex. _Apple2013_ has 0 TBT displayed, but no way anyone active with over 7,000 posts is genuinely broke). Although something tells me that a big portion of those members are actually broke. 25th richest member hype


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## King Dorado (Sep 7, 2017)

Cress said:


> Most likely, not all 44,009 members on the bottom are genuinely broke, it's just that they deposited all of their TBT (ex. _Apple2013_ has 0 TBT displayed, but no way anyone active with over 7,000 posts is genuinely broke).



I'm not so sure I agree 100% with your policework there Cress...


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## Aquari (Sep 7, 2017)

We're in a great tbt depression


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## AnimalCrossingPerson (Sep 7, 2017)

All of the above information is already outdated.


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## That Marshal Fangirl (Sep 7, 2017)

Yup, most of us are broke.  We've already established this. ;-;


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## xSuperMario64x (Sep 7, 2017)

I only have about 850 tbt. I get jealous of people tryin to sell stuff for like 2000 tbt like I don't even have half that much lmao ;-;

Tryin to think of a way we can fix this though... maybe people could stop tryin to sell collectibles for outrageous prices? (Like the pokeball... I understand it's super rare but why would you spend 19k tbt on it??)


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## Trundle (Sep 7, 2017)

Guess again kiddo


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## Chris (Sep 7, 2017)

Some of us staff are poor too!


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## Hanzoisbae (Sep 7, 2017)

explain jerms tbt price then


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## Farobi (Sep 7, 2017)

The right answer here is communism


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## himeki (Sep 7, 2017)

bruh ur point w/ apple is bull**** i have over 10k posts and im broke


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## aleshapie (Sep 7, 2017)

I, personally, think those that have been inactive for more than 5 years, should be sent 1-2 "warning" emails and then have there TBT balance removed. Once a month, that TBT "lump sum" could be dispersed amongst currently active members. (ie: you must post and/or log in at least once or a defined amount of times) per month in order to get a portion of that revoked bell balance. Orrrrr, reinstate the interest...orrrrrrr, make each post "earn" more than the current amount. 

Several ways this could be done with a simple behind the scenes accounting program.

- - - Post Merge - - -

To add to that, nothing is more frustrating to stumble along an old thread and see someone from 2011 have 5,000+ bells....and have not been involved with the forum since 2011!

- - - Post Merge - - -

Bocho is not the extreme example I was looking for, but has more bells that the site owner and has not posted in 2 years!


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## Bcat (Sep 7, 2017)

yeah, we all broke. Rich members that have the best collectibles and the most tbt are mostly inactive. We've established this before though.


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## Byngo (Sep 7, 2017)

im actually in debt like apple2013


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## That Marshal Fangirl (Sep 7, 2017)

aleshapie said:


> Bocho is not the extreme example I was looking for, but has more bells that the site owner and has not posted in 2 years!



I'm gonna have to go ahead and say that bocho is a really good person though, because they sent me 6 birthstones for free out of nowhere.


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## Hyoon (Sep 7, 2017)

it'd be nice if there were a variety of ways you can earn tbt instead of just trading. like maybe a daily login bonus tbt or something to reward active members. many app games that i play employ this sort of thing.


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## Jacob (Sep 7, 2017)

tbt is inferior to collectibles


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## xTurnip (Sep 7, 2017)

Hyoon said:


> it'd be nice if there were a variety of ways you can earn tbt instead of just trading. like maybe a daily login bonus tbt or something to reward active members. many app games that i play employ this sort of thing.



This would be the best way to do it.


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## LambdaDelta (Sep 7, 2017)

Hyoon said:


> like maybe a daily login bonus tbt or something to reward active members. many app games that i play employ this sort of thing.



tbt is now f2p gacha

let's make the shop gacha too

500 tbt to roll for that toy hammer

.2% chance of success, no stacking


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## oath2order (Sep 7, 2017)

Ehhh

This doesn't really give a good indicator of the economy. It doesn't take into account users who are banned, and thus have their bells taken out of the economy.

I don't think you can really judge upper and middle class based off of bells alone. It's a good indicator, sure, but the value of collectibles should also be taken into account.


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## Alolan_Apples (Sep 7, 2017)

aleshapie said:


> I, personally, think those that have been inactive for more than 5 years, should be sent 1-2 "warning" emails and then have there TBT balance removed. Once a month, that TBT "lump sum" could be dispersed amongst currently active members. (ie: you must post and/or log in at least once or a defined amount of times) per month in order to get a portion of that revoked bell balance. Orrrrr, reinstate the interest...orrrrrrr, make each post "earn" more than the current amount.
> 
> Several ways this could be done with a simple behind the scenes accounting program.
> 
> ...



I thought of a similar idea, but I would only do it to the richer members that are either inactive or have not spent their TBT in a while. But if they have less than 11k TBT, they are free from redistribution.

However, if we do take away all TBT from inactive members, and they return when a new AC game comes out, they will be in tough times like newly registered members.


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## Justin (Sep 7, 2017)

Hyoon said:


> it'd be nice if there were a variety of ways you can earn tbt instead of just trading. like maybe a daily login bonus tbt or something to reward active members. many app games that i play employ this sort of thing.



My favourite idea has always been a functional turnip market.

What could possibly go wrong


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## Alolan_Apples (Sep 7, 2017)

Coming Soon: TBT Bells and TBT Marketplace - Proposal. You may find that in the Apple Times, which was formerly known as the StarFall Press.

What I plan on writing is a solution to save the TBT Marketplace. It's not just to speed it up, but it's also to make apples, chocolate cakes, and peaches more valuable again. I 'member when chocolate cakes were 4k TBT a piece.


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## Bcat (Sep 7, 2017)

Alolan_Apples said:


> Coming Soon: TBT Bells and TBT Marketplace - Proposal. You may find that in the Apple Times, which was formerly known as the StarFall Press.
> 
> What I plan on writing is a solution to save the TBT Marketplace. It's not just to speed it up, but it's also to make apples, chocolate cakes, and peaches more valuable again. I 'member when chocolate cakes were 4k TBT a piece.



i seem to remember a certain _someone_ saying they were going to start giving away tbt once they got to 10,000...


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## Alolan_Apples (Sep 7, 2017)

Bcat said:


> i seem to remember a certain _someone_ saying they were going to start giving away tbt once they got to 10,000...



I know who you are talking about. Is it the apple king?

I do want to hold at least 10,000 TBT, but if I get anymore TBT after 10k TBT (in increments of 1,000), then I'll give away the extra TBT. I even said on Discord that if I have 100k TBT, then I would give 90 members 1,000 TBT each.


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## radical6 (Sep 7, 2017)

im broke give me bells for my hard work in the cellar


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## That Marshal Fangirl (Sep 7, 2017)

Alolan_Apples said:


> I know who you are talking about. Is it the apple king?
> 
> I do want to hold at least 10,000 TBT, but if I get anymore TBT after 10k TBT (in increments of 1,000), then I'll give away the extra TBT. I even said on Discord that if I have 100k TBT, then I would give 90 members 1,000 TBT each.



Can I have your extra TBT?


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## radical6 (Sep 7, 2017)

how the **** is a tbt depression real just post more 

just post your essay on trump you wrote for english in the brewsters cafe and change it a bit to allow discussion


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## Thunder (Sep 7, 2017)

LambdaDelta said:


> tbt is now f2p gacha
> 
> let's make the shop gacha too
> 
> ...



oh boy i hope i can finally get that toy hammer


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## FireNinja1 (Sep 7, 2017)

I mean I don't think that's the greatest idea...I think it'd be really demotivating for a lot of people if they disappeared for five years and a month and then suddenly came back to find everything has been taken away from them.


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## Jake (Sep 7, 2017)

No one is ever going to get their TBT bells taken away chill


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## That Marshal Fangirl (Sep 7, 2017)

Jake said:


> No one is ever going to get their TBT bells taken away chill



I agree it wouldn't really be fair to take people's TBT away, but could you guys at least do a thing where for a limited time members could get 1,000 free TBT or something?  We need to do something about this terrible economy.


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## Alolan_Apples (Sep 7, 2017)

ThatOneMarshalFangirl said:


> I agree it wouldn't really be fair to take people's TBT away, but could you guys at least do a thing where for a limited time members could get 1,000 free TBT or something?  We need to do something about this terrible economy.



I know that taking away someone else's TBT would be a bad idea, but part of the reason why I would support that instead is because if we just keep creating more TBT for others and not take away others', it can make TBT Bells worthless. Thus, having 10k TBT wouldn't be as special.

Maybe the site should introduce MEOW coupons, where you can do daily initiatives. You can also cash in your MEOW coupons for 300 TBT per coupon.


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## Sgt.Groove (Sep 8, 2017)

I like meow coupons, but maybe tone it down from 300, maybe 10 or 20, if users made 300btb per day the inflation would cause such a havoc that the economy may never become balanced again :c


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## GreatUsername (Sep 8, 2017)

I guess that a lot of the user with zero tbt are the users who just created an account and never used it, or the ones with like 2-3 tbt are just long-inactive


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## radical6 (Sep 8, 2017)

tbt economy is crashing, we will lose the 2/3 of the sites users who only come on here to smuggle collectibles. think of the investors!


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## seliph (Sep 8, 2017)

I know this is ironic coming from me but maybe yall should go outside


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## KaydeeKrunk (Sep 8, 2017)

Wait wat... d-does this mean I'm rich? Top %1? Wow, why can't this be real life?


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## King Dorado (Sep 8, 2017)

KaydeeKrunk said:


> Wait wat... d-does this mean I'm rich? Top %1? Wow, why can't this be real life?



where my tbt alimony check?


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## KaydeeKrunk (Sep 8, 2017)

King Dorado said:


> where my tbt alimony check?



Goodness waifu, you're sucking me DRY!


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## Farobi (Sep 8, 2017)

The top percentage is skewed though if we factor in spam bots. But generally it's still a safe assumption that people over 2k tbt is in the top 1%

And I have more in my ABD as well so if anyone wants some dont hit me up


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## Jake (Sep 8, 2017)

ThatOneMarshalFangirl said:


> I agree it wouldn't really be fair to take people's TBT away, but could you guys at least do a thing where for a limited time members could get 1,000 free TBT or something?  We need to do something about this terrible economy.



you mean the "terrible economy" that the _users_ created in the first place???


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## Coach (Sep 8, 2017)

A Bowser Revolution with older members TBT wouldn't exactly be fair imo, people might want to revisit the site in the future. I do empathise with new users though, it's a lot harder to earn TBT now than it was when I was a newbie. I think the Christmas advent calendar was a good step forward, since you got rewards for coming online each day.


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## aleshapie (Sep 8, 2017)

Since people seem to be hung up on my statement of removing bells, I would like to point out what I actually said that is being taken out of context...



aleshapie said:


> I, personally, think those that have been inactive for more than 5 years, *should be sent 1-2 "warning" emails *and _*then*_ have their TBT balance removed.


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## EvieEvening23 (Sep 11, 2017)

Darius-The-Fox said:


> I like meow coupons, but maybe tone it down from 300, maybe 10 or 20, if users made 300btb per day the inflation would cause such a havoc that the economy may never become balanced again :c



I like this idea! All of you staff personnel don't take bells away from other members, just make it easier for newbies to earn bells through a meow coupon (meow bell?) service.

As for ideas, maybe like 

5 TBT: Post a reply for a member with a number or a certain letter in their username (only applies once a day)
7 TBT: Buy something from the Retail Thread
15 TBT: Change your avatar or signature (only applies once a month)
1 TBT: Like a post (to prevent spamming the like button, you could put a limit of maybe 10 likes? As in, once you liked your 10th post of the day, you no longer get TBT for liking posts)


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## aleshapie (Sep 13, 2017)

Question...why don't we get a 'bonus' for referrals? Justa thought.


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## visibleghost (Sep 13, 2017)

@ the people wanting to take inactive members' bells and redistribute, if u want free tbt just do what people always have been doing and send people vms and pms begging for tbt lmao


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## Alolan_Apples (Sep 13, 2017)

visibleghost said:


> @ the people wanting to take inactive members' bells and redistribute, if u want free tbt just do what people always have been doing and send people vms and pms begging for tbt lmao



If you have nothing to sell, there's no need to beg for TBT. If you want the big bells, you'll need something that sells for it. Of course, people don't have to buy if they don't want to buy.


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## Jake (Sep 13, 2017)

aleshapie said:


> Question...why don't we get a 'bonus' for referrals? Justa thought.



Can easily be abused


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## Corrie (Sep 13, 2017)

Prices change so adding more TBT into the market isn't the answer. Prices of things would just raise cause people have more money to spend. The problem is that a few years back, people had a lot of TBT to spend. Now they don't so those old prices being listed in the collectible threads are outdated cause no one can afford them. The answer would be for people to realize this and sell for a little less. But they don't cause they don't wanna lose profits, which I get, so now those collectibles sit and they wonder why they have to keep bumping their thread.


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## Danielkang2 (Sep 13, 2017)

I'm broke, LOL.

- - - Post Merge - - -

My post got me 1 tbt, yay!


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## Alienfish (Sep 13, 2017)

Corrie said:


> The answer would be for people to realize this and sell for a little less. But they don't cause they don't wanna lose profits, which I get, so now those collectibles sit and they wonder why they have to keep bumping their thread.



Yeah everyone wants to earn a bit too much money here. If everyone stopped asking for ridiculous prices for a somewhat cheap pixel thing, yeah then maybe it could be somewhat stabilized. You couldn't really force a price on things.

I guess things will be even in a due time, but yeah people are not gonna buy them for overprices either unless they have like extreme art skills or have stuff themself to sell.


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## Danielkang2 (Sep 13, 2017)

Sheila said:


> Yeah everyone wants to earn a bit too much money here. If everyone stopped asking for ridiculous prices for a somewhat cheap pixel thing, yeah then maybe it could be somewhat stabilized. You couldn't really force a price on things.
> 
> I guess things will be even in a due time, but yeah people are not gonna buy them for overprices either unless they have like extreme art skills or have stuff themself to sell.


I mean if you're paying viritual currency for a virtual pixel collectible. It's worth whatever people want to pay. There's no such thing as a "too expensive" collectible. If anything, collectible prices have plummeted. ;-;


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## Hyoon (Sep 13, 2017)

Corrie said:


> Prices change so adding more TBT into the market isn't the answer. Prices of things would just raise cause people have more money to spend. The problem is that a few years back, people had a lot of TBT to spend. Now they don't so those old prices being listed in the collectible threads are outdated cause no one can afford them. The answer would be for people to realize this and sell for a little less. But they don't cause they don't wanna lose profits, which I get, so now those collectibles sit and they wonder why they have to keep bumping their thread.



Exactly this. You can either let your collectibles go for realistic prices and make tbt or you can be stubborn and have no buyers. Jacob's collectible thread is a good example of this.


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## Bowie (Sep 13, 2017)

Literally the only reason I have so much TBT is because there's nothing I want to buy.

I only ever buy stuff if it's a one-time thing (like the flea).


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## Sholee (Sep 13, 2017)

Sheila said:


> Yeah everyone wants to earn a bit too much money here. If everyone stopped asking for ridiculous prices for a somewhat cheap pixel thing, yeah then maybe it could be somewhat stabilized. You couldn't really force a price on things.
> 
> I guess things will be even in a due time, but yeah people are not gonna buy them for overprices either unless they have like extreme art skills or have stuff themself to sell.





Corrie said:


> Prices change so adding more TBT into the market isn't the answer. Prices of things would just raise cause people have more money to spend. The problem is that a few years back, people had a lot of TBT to spend. Now they don't so those old prices being listed in the collectible threads are outdated cause no one can afford them. The answer would be for people to realize this and sell for a little less. But they don't cause they don't wanna lose profits, which I get, so now those collectibles sit and they wonder why they have to keep bumping their thread.





Hyoon said:


> Exactly this. You can either let your collectibles go for realistic prices and make tbt or you can be stubborn and have no buyers. Jacob's collectible thread is a good example of this.



Prices ARE dropping for collectibles, just not as fast as some would want.

Speaking on rarer collectibles, as someone who sells as well as own a few, it's not really being "stubborn" in my case. I love all the collectibles I have now and if I don't get the price I value it for, then I'm absolutely fine with keeping it. Forum bells can only buy so much nowadays, it's not like in the past where the TBT marketplace was bustling with activity and different collectibles. Before, my thread would be on page 4 or 5 by the end of the day but now my thread will stay on the first page despite not even bumping it. 

For older collectibles, there's even less in circulation than before due to so many inactive members. So as much as the "old prices" shouldn't be written in stone, people should also be realistic with their offers. It *wasn't easy* for us earn bells to get these collectibles either, either through acnl cycling, art, participating in fairs, or just straight playing the market by buying low and selling high. Everyone who has those collectibles that people are whining is too expensive, spent time and effort to get it.

On another note, I don't really see any way to fix the economy here without pissing someone off but I think the staff has done a good job by releasing so many new collectibles in the past 2 years so that everyone has a chance of getting something without breaking the bank.


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## Alienfish (Sep 13, 2017)

Danielkang2 said:


> I mean if you're paying viritual currency for a virtual pixel collectible. It's worth whatever people want to pay. There's no such thing as a "too expensive" collectible. If anything, collectible prices have plummeted. ;-;



Yeah it is, unless you can do massive things to earn like 30k tbt at a whim(unless you have like old collectibles), like having art shops or stuff and people are buying. I mean you can't expect people to buy things for too much, then you'd have to bump your thread til you die.

(i guess you are a bit bias with that opinion, but yeah...)


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## Alolan_Apples (Sep 13, 2017)

I have to say that in order to save the marketplace, we need to come up with more spending opportunities. Somehow, collectibles aren't enough (even newer collectibles).

Some ideas I have:

- Purchasable themes. We can finally have the Woods Theme year-round, but you'll need to pay 1,000 TBT per new theme.
- Customizable rooms on profile. Everyone gets their own virtual room accessed through their profile. You can buy rights to a furniture series or a set from the TBT shop, and it's tradeable. You can also have your favorite villagers in your room.
- Customizable character. May appear in room and on profile.

Of course, the staff can make certain objects limited stock.


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## Alienfish (Sep 13, 2017)

Alolan_Apples said:


> I have to say that in order to save the marketplace, we need to come up with more spending opportunities. Somehow, collectibles aren't enough (even newer collectibles).
> 
> Some ideas I have:
> 
> ...



Have a feeling this would require quite some more server space, hosting, and the costs for those as well, even if I like your idea.

I guess re-releasing more of the old pixels or making more of the current ones could be a solution(like having more restock, old fair collectible raffles etc.), but yeah then those who have them from the start or bought them expensive will flip :^)


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## Hyoon (Sep 13, 2017)

Sholee said:


> For older collectibles, there's even less in circulation than before due to so many inactive members. So as much as the "old prices" shouldn't be written in stone, people should also be realistic with their offers. It *wasn't easy* for us earn bells to get these collectibles either, either through acnl cycling, art, participating in fairs, or just straight playing the market by buying low and selling high. Everyone who has those collectibles that people are whining is too expensive, spent time and effort to get it.



I guess stubborn doesn't apply to everyone. I wasn't specifically targeting anyone, but I'm just saying to be willing to negotiate is all. And even you yourself acknowledge it, it isn't easy to earn tbt so it's not just sellers who had put in effort, it's the buyers as well? It isn't exactly whining when that's the reality? Most people here aren't trying to lowball if they can help it I would think, but certain prices are no longer amounts that most people here can afford.


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## Sholee (Sep 13, 2017)

Sheila said:


> Have a feeling this would require quite some more server space, hosting, and the costs for those as well, even if I like your idea.
> 
> I guess re-releasing more of the old pixels or making more of the current ones could be a solution(like having more restock, old fair collectible raffles etc.), but yeah then those who have them from the start or bought them expensive will flip :^)




I saw so many of these posts, "I bought x collectible because y was sold out.."

*An idea I have is for any future events, remove the limited stock, make it all unlimited. *

Most of the events hosted here require "event ticket" anyways so it's not like someone can buy 1031913012931 of a collectible to make a profit from and it'll remove the stress and urgency of having to submit things right away before the collectible becomes sold out. 

And all the collectibles sold will still be considered rare since it wasn't bought with forum bells but with event tickets for participating.

And for contests, they can still use the trophy and event tickets. They can add another collectible to make it more special.

Can mods consider this please??


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## Alienfish (Sep 13, 2017)

Yeah of course there are older members that "keep" old collectibles inactive and unless the staff wants someone else to have them there is not much we can do, unless those members are willing to come back and sell/give them away.

Should also say in addition before you were able to trade game/real life currency and things for them so yeah if someone wanted to buy with TBT bells they had to match that as well.


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## Sholee (Sep 13, 2017)

Sheila said:


> Yeah of course there are older members that "keep" old collectibles inactive and unless the staff wants someone else to have them there is not much we can do, unless those members are willing to come back and sell/give them away.
> 
> Should also say in addition before you were able to trade game/real life currency and things for them so yeah if someone wanted to buy with TBT bells they had to match that as well.



I'm pretty sure majority of the inactives will come back when there's a new animal crossing game. When that happens, there will be a huge influx of the older collectibles but until then, #ripmarketplace


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## Alienfish (Sep 13, 2017)

Sholee said:


> I'm pretty sure majority of the inactives will come back when there's a new animal crossing game. When that happens, there will be a huge influx of collectibles but until then, #ripmarketplace



Yeah, probably. I liked your idea above too, it's not that people buy like 12 Pinky's each either at once or get 10 feather of the same one at that time because they can't so yeah they could very well be unlimited, since there aren't enough things so you could get like 200 tickets unless you won exactly everything so.


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## aleshapie (Sep 13, 2017)

Jake said:


> Can easily be abused



True. I guess I don't think that way, so I hadn't thought about it.


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## Justin (Sep 14, 2017)

aleshapie said:


> Question...why don't we get a 'bonus' for referrals? Justa thought.



We used to have this. Lots of small ways to earn bells like this have been silently nixed over the years as the abusers ruin them for everyone else!



Corrie said:


> Prices change so adding more TBT into the market isn't the answer. Prices of things would just raise cause people have more money to spend. The problem is that a few years back, people had a lot of TBT to spend. Now they don't so those old prices being listed in the collectible threads are outdated cause no one can afford them. The answer would be for people to realize this and sell for a little less. But they don't cause they don't wanna lose profits, which I get, so now those collectibles sit and they wonder why they have to keep bumping their thread.



This is the analysis that I agree with most out of everyone's takes. The old prices of White Feathers being sold for prices like 50k were absurdly out of control and never should have gone that high to begin with. There seems to be a view (misguided in my opinion) that because those crazy prices don't hold anymore, then there is somehow a problem that needs dealing with.

A number of reasons that no longer apply now caused those prices to take hold in the first place. For one, many of those who became so rich in the early days after New Leaf were due to the massive number of new members joining and buying Animal Crossing items with their welcome forum bells. For a new member joining, they either had no idea what the real value of their bells were, or quite simply didn't care anyway and were only here to trade a few items with no real interest in the TBT community itself.

If someone said to you 'hey, you can get this super rare Animal Crossing item if you just hand over some of your virtual forum currency' and you were a new member just here to trade, why the hell wouldn't you take them up on it? For those reasons, they were more than happy to hand away 100 bells (or more!) each for items to various shops, and the owners of those shops made tens of thousands hand over fist. We slowly reduced the welcome bells over time but it was as high as almost 1000 at one point!

For the record, I certainly don't hold it against anyone who took advantage of that, it was completely fair and by the book with how things worked at the time! But there's no denying in my mind that was a major contributor towards the sky-high prices and the same reason why things changed after we removed welcome bells. It is one of the main reasons we made that change to begin with -- it wasn't just alt accounts.

The other main reason is of course that we no longer allow real money transactions. There are surely a small number of 'under the table' ones taking place these days still, but for a couple years we fully allowed it to take place in public, so there's no doubt that significantly boosted the value of things then.


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## Alolan_Apples (Sep 14, 2017)

Justin said:


> We used to have this. Lots of small ways to earn bells like this have been silently nixed over the years as the abusers ruin them for everyone else!



Like the poll creation bells? I actually learned that the reason why some people abuse systems like that is because they are too greedy. TBT hoarding is one thing, but the greedy members aren't even the TBT hoarders in general.

For that longer section, I can totally see why welcome bells were taken down. It's to keep the marketplace from having these high prices. You didn't have a problem with high prices, but you didn't want them to be that high all the time. I remember when basic shop collectibles used to be really expensive (not like 10k, but at least 5k). Maybe there should be a price limit on every collectible when being traded. Like Pokeballs can no longer be traded for 18k TBT. It should be like 8k TBT.

But it was more than removing welcome bells. There were a few setbacks on the site's currency. One of them was that a couple of users got fined for exploiting a username change glitch. Another was Jingle's Jolly Jamboree, which took in a lot of TBT Bells. I suggested more spending opportunities to prevent TBT Bells from going too high, and paying more for posting due to how bad the economy has gotten.


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## oath2order (Sep 14, 2017)

gyro said:


> I know this is ironic coming from me but maybe yall should go outside



Jasmine Masters - get a job challenge



kallie said:


> tbt economy is crashing, we will lose the 2/3 of the sites users who only come on here to smuggle collectibles. think of the investors!



FREE MARKET CAPITALISM



Alolan_Apples said:


> Like the poll creation bells? I actually learned that the reason why some people abuse systems like that is because they are too greedy. TBT hoarding is one thing, but the greedy members aren't even the TBT hoarders in general.
> 
> For that longer section, I can totally see why welcome bells were taken down. It's to keep the marketplace from having these high prices. You didn't have a problem with high prices, but you didn't want them to be that high all the time. I remember when basic shop collectibles used to be really expensive (not like 10k, but at least 5k). Maybe there should be a price limit on every collectible when being traded. Like Pokeballs can no longer be traded for 18k TBT. It should be like 8k TBT.
> 
> But it was more than removing welcome bells. There were a few setbacks on the site's currency. One of them was that a couple of users got fined for exploiting a username change glitch. Another was Jingle's Jolly Jamboree, which took in a lot of TBT Bells. I suggested more spending opportunities to prevent TBT Bells from going too high, and paying more for posting due to how bad the economy has gotten.



I thought you were in favor of small government, no intervention, and the invisible handof the free market.


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## aleshapie (Sep 14, 2017)

Remember when an ABD would sell for 100-150 TBT?? 

Dupers made OUT!


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## Zane (Sep 14, 2017)

aleshapie said:


> Remember when an ABD would sell for 100-150 TBT??
> 
> Dupers made OUT!



I bought a set of zodiac animals for 300tbt  ngl I don't miss those prices. Although the animals are in one of my houses still so I guess they've paid for themselves. Lol


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## aleshapie (Sep 14, 2017)

Or that one time I sold Diana for 1000 TBT...good times.


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## Sholee (Sep 14, 2017)

aleshapie said:


> Or that one time I sold Diana for 1000 TBT...good times.



Just an FYI for people who weren't active during that time:

This was when welcome bells were a thing. There was no stopping someone from making multiple accounts to get the 700-1000 (?) welcome bells for each account to purchase their dreamies from cycling threads. So like Justin said, people who were doing TBT transactions then, profit greatly from the welcome bells. (_But I think most of those members are now inactive_)


There also wasn't a "price guide" around at that time either so collectibles were selling at different price points. I think having a price guide helps but I think it also hurts the community as well in some aspects.


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## Biancasbotique (Sep 14, 2017)

I really thought I would get welcome bells when I became active again..


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## oath2order (Sep 21, 2017)

Biancasbotique said:


> I really thought I would get welcome bells when I became active again..



Thats never happened


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