these are hard times and we all know it

[XXXStud Rasa]

I understand  that the cost of  a system like SL its not cheap but anyway I strongly belive and I bet lots of people think the same way as well, that due to the global economic and the hardship most of us are going thru this time ,SL needs to re adjuste themselves and low their  land tie prices as well as  the marketplace cost of placing an store or items as well,  at least thitl the  economic rases again and that way  we all can  enjoy and contributing  to keep this magnificent game alive because some landlords of sims thta have been in sl for as long as  sl dose exist  are  packing their  lifes and leaving the bussines, as well as store owners , we all need to do something about it,, is not the matter of making lots of money instead  helpping  people to be more creative and keep the good people in the game, SL ,please as same as you we all suffering for the same  trauma of economic issues , hel us all and help yourselves to  make people feeling better and lets all work together , ties are too much money, thanks and I hope this will open the eyes of the good people in charge of SL thankj you ,,,,

[Freya Mokusei]

Pick one of:-

• I don't think you understand enough of how SL works to be able to dictate prices.
• We're all residents here, none of us can change tier prices. Linden's barely/rarely read this forum.
• LL is a private company, with private shareholders. Their prices aren't hostage to any other economic issues other than the value of the US Dollar.
• It's not Linden Lab's fault people can't afford their prices; they don't owe it to anyone to make their prices affordable.
• Many people afford tier every day, so this is a non-issue.
• Why should the effort of those who do afford tier be undermined by LL suddenly deciding that tier should drop; what justified the high costs in the first place?
• Existance in Second Life is free, there is no food or healthcare. If you run into economic hardships, tier down and wait for greener times.
• Would you try this argument when trying to buy a McDonalds? How about when trying to buy a car? Do you think a salesman would listen to "But the economy is hard" as justification for him recieving a smaller commission?
• Likewise, not having money doesn't prevent anyone from using SL to be creative.
• If you can afford a PC and Internet connection, you can probably afford $10 for basic tier.
• If you can't afford $10 for basic tier, you have more problems than LL can solve.
• There's been a billion and six real studies done on the Second Life economy. I would doubt that you've read any of these (since you mention no facts, just assumptions), and in fact just want cheaper prices for selfish reasons.

Thanks for playing.

[Tamara Artis]

Well because of the hard times, I am renting my land for 1L$/prim, it wasn't that cheap before... Was it?

[Syo Emerald]

As long as you can afford a pc and a connection to fast internet....you shouldn't struggle on that (and your own economic situation can't be that horrible). Oh and I don't get the point where one need land to be creative.

Also I would suggest the use of space and points at the end of your sentences. Its difficult to read it this way.

[JeanneAnne]

these times are hard compared to when?

compared to the Great Depression?

compared to the flu epidemic of 1918?

compared to the Civil War ??

quit your whining over 'hard times' XXX .. times aint so hard

if you dont like the prices LL charges .. dont pay them !!  i dont

if you pay what LL charges you do so of your own free will .. if you dont like what LL charges dont pay it

simple as that

Jeanne

[Ceka Cianci]

hard times is when there is no internet to get on anything..hehehehe

i still see kids running around with net able ipod and ipads and cell phones and nice cars..

times could be better but they are not hard yet..

hard is when you are wondering if there is gonna be a sandwich or something today..

LL is the one that needs to figure out it's problem with prices..

it's the one that needs to figure out why it can't kleep up the numbers in new members..

people have said till they are blue in the face what LL should do..and it doesn't get heard most of the time..

they won't drop prices on tier..all they said about tier this year is  that it won't be going up..

i like SL..but i'm worn out on being worried about  the economy or why this is doing this or why they decided to change that..

it's not worth the headaches.. they are going to do what they want to do and we'll either live with it or we won't..

that is about our only right here..

 

i'm treating it for what it is..a place to relax and enjoy a lot of cool stuffs..if i can't do that..it won't be because i feel times are too hard..it will be because i can't relax and enjoy cool stuffs hehehe

i'm just making things more simplified for myself..because you can bet they have their interest first in mind as well..

 

if times do get hard..SL will be the last thing on my mind hehehe

 

[Suki Hirano]

Yeah SL items have very high prices when compared to RL 3D model shops (think renderosity). People are also paranoid about perms which is funny because everything on RL 3D shops are all completely full perm and can be used anywhere, while SL stuff can only be used in SL. Land prices are completely f'ed up. $1000USD + $295/month for a tiny piece of pixel land? Yes I'd really love to pay the same cost into pixel land than a small apartment.

Though nothing's gonna change. Land prices certainly won't go down since LL are rational profit-maximizing people, so are creators.

[Conifer Dada]

Land prices have dropped a lot since I started in SL in 2006, when you were lucky to get a 16 sq metre plot for L$400!

I think I paid L$ 17,000 for my first 512 sq m plot, which was about the going rate then.  A couple of months later there was a big land crash and prices halved in a day - LL had been adding a lot of new mainland and it's rumoured that a big Land Baron sold off his / her stock of unsold land.  Since then  land prices have drifted steadily down until now there's loads of abandoned land for sale at L$ 1 per sq m, and some residents are even undercutting that!  

Land value is negligible now - it's tier that counts and it hasn't changed in the 6 years I've been in SL.

Even if all abandoned land was given away free, it probably wouldn't affect the land market much as tier is what matters these days.  Presumably Linden Lab would lower tier if they thought it would make economic sense - otherwise it'll probably stay the same.  My request - and it's just my personal opinion - is that LL should raise the tier-free limit from 512 sq m to 1024.

 

[Julez Andrew]

You are right that it can be too much for many peple. What about some free alternatives of SL ?

[M4SK22 Melody]

First world problems eh?

This is the most laughable forum thread in the known universe.

[JeanneAnne]

---

M4SK22 Melody wrote:

First world problems eh?

This is the most laughable forum thread in the known universe.

---

no kidding !! when hundreds of millions of ppl are hungry .. to complain about cartoons costing too much is just kinda ..... sick

once i had "land" offered to me for free .. i was kinda naive .. not too sure how tier worked .. so @ 1st the idea of free land sounded appealing .. but then i was informed or realized somehow that i would have to pay LL "tier" on "my" land .. whats w/ this? i thot .. is tier like property tax you pay to the government then? but property taxes are less than the value of the property & tier is much more than the value of the property .. so how can you say that you "own" virtual land when you constantly must pay the real owner for it ??

renting server space for coded cartoons is very much an affluent 1st world phenomonon .. only ppl rich by world standards could even contemplate paying for pixels .. with so much poverty in the world is it even ethical to pay for pixels? thats a question ppl who pay for the privilege of pretending to "own" someting that isnt even real will have to ask themselves

sometimes i expect to wake up & find that overnite people will have collectively had a fog lifted from over their brains .. & they will feel silly & sheepish for having taken a cartoon world so seriously that theyve been paying real money for ther colorful illusions .. if this ever happens sl dies .. so i hope it doesnt happen .. but i really hav2 wonder what ppl are thinking when they pay that tier

Jeanne

 

[solstyse]

Land and tier basically works on a "pyramid" basis. The truth is that most large land owners aren't paying the full cost of their sim. And if they had to, they wouldn't own it.

The truth is that the rl servers take rl money to run. The rl technicians take rl money to pay. And LL is a real business, with real overhead, and real stockholders to pay. I personally have no idea what percentage of the land tier cost is to cover overhead, or what percentage of it is pure profit. I am certain that LL has some kind of accounting team thinking about this though.

As it is with a rl business, when you agree to LL's high tier prices, you need to think of how to cover your costs. In a way, all the high tier does is force creativity. You get the appropriate sized parcel for the risk you want to take, make it appealing, then rent off leftover prims. When your costs are covered, or better than covered, you can move on to larger plots, and start looking for more renters. In that way, land keeps getting subdivided until it's affordable. We will always wish for lower costs, and bigger pieces of land for our money. But in truth, I think the expectation is that once your costs get high, you will find a way to lower their rl impact. I think for any of us to get our wish of tier being lowered, the whole system would have to crumble. In the meantime, if you want mroe land, you need to find more renters to share your costs.

[161488303349]

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Tamara Artis wrote:

Well because of the hard times, I am renting my land for 1L$/prim, it wasn't that cheap before... Was it?

---

^^that

can also get mainland for less than 1L per metre now

 

+

back in 2007 I paid 5000L for a 512m in the middle of nowhere. no beach or water or anything. some new guy moved into the sim and he paid 20L and more to buy up most of it. I done a land swap with him bc I was in the middle of his lands. I went over by the side of his land. so that was ok.

when I was in the middle I get offered 10,000L and then 15,000L for my parcel from some landcutters. I said nah! bc I kinda knew that they would cut it up to extort the new guy. so I swap with the guy

about 6 months later on I sell to him bc he start making his city bigger by expand into the next sim and I was in the way again. I just say he can have for what I paid for it and I set to him for that. he buy and then give me 1000L more. I try give back to him but he say nah! is ok. so I say thanks and I went and found a place by a river on other sim. so that was cool

he is actual still in SL that guy. i go by there sometimes

[161488303349]

ps. just add here

I know quite a few oldbies downsizing their lands. when chat to them is mostly bc they not making as many sales now as they used t in their shops. when chat more to them they mostly say is bc of competition. that is way more people making and selling stuff than when they first started and prices for quality stuff is dropping

+

just say something else as well. not sure if is typical but maybe means something. is a couple of people who about 6 months old now. I meet them when they was brand new. anyways they hit it off and get a Linden Home. they since move out and are renting a island homestead together. they don't make anything. just buy what they want

also is a guy who start about 9 months ago now. he get a Linden Home back at that time as well and I help him set up his parcel controls in it. last week he get a whole sim. like the other couple he is just live on it. some of his friends are moving in and they divvying up the sim between them. none of them make stuff either. just live and play on SL. just buy whatever they need and mount it on their sim

[Sassy Romano]

I was once very close to losing my home. After months of burning through savings, I can assure you that the internet is a key resource for seeking employment. If the PC is already owned, there's no recurring cost for that item.

 

It's very wrong to suggest that because someone ones s PC and can afford basic internet that there's surplus funds. It's not always the case.

 

There would have been a point at which my largely worthless PC would have been sold, just like a number of other things that I sold to stay afloat.

 

The rest I agree with though, SL is a luxury, if there's no money available for it, don't pay - simple!

[Porky Gorky]

Hard times or not, the cost of tier is too high and has been since the mainland bubble burst years ago. They need to adopt a 2 tier system, one for commercial usage and one for everything else. If you want to use your land to make money then you pay the higher (current) tier rate. For non commercial useage you pay a greatly reduced tier.

Whilst they are at it, they should close the marketplace, fix inworld search, stabalize the grid and drive the merchants and shoppers back inworld. LL need to work out a new way to take a cut off of our sales inworld without relying on an external 2D webstie. This will drive up land usage and their income, possibly giving them enough leeway to create and manage a 2 tier system. 

Imagine if they could slice tier prices by 50% for non commercial use? Stick that in big letters in ads accross the internet and it would be a great incentive to entice back the hundreds of thousands of customers that Linden Labs have lost in the last 10 years.

[Melita Magic]

I doubt tier will reduce, but who knows. 

As far as residents - there are more quality 'freebies' than any one avatar could ever hope to find. Spending money here is an option, not a necessity.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Freya Mokusei wrote:

Pick one of:-

• Would you try this argument when trying to buy a McDonalds?
  How about when trying to buy a car? Do you think a salesman would listen to "But the economy is hard" as justification for him recieving a smaller commission?

---

Yes if it meant the difference between a sale and no sale. Some commission is better than no commission

[Phil Deakins]

---

JeanneAnne wrote:

once i had "land" offered to me for free .. i was kinda naive .. not too sure how tier worked .. so @ 1st the idea of free land sounded appealing .. but then i was informed or realized somehow that i would have to pay LL "tier" on "my" land .. whats w/ this? i thot .. is tier like property tax you pay to the government then? but property taxes are less than the value of the property & tier is much more than the value of the property .. so how can you say that you "own" virtual land when you constantly must pay the real owner for it ??

renting server space for coded cartoons is very much an affluent 1st world phenomonon .. only ppl rich by world standards could even contemplate paying for pixels .. with so much poverty in the world is it even ethical to pay for pixels? thats a question ppl who pay for the privilege of pretending to "own" someting that isnt even real will have to ask themselves

sometimes i expect to wake up & find that overnite people will have collectively had a fog lifted from over their brains .. & they will feel silly & sheepish for having taken a cartoon world so seriously that theyve been paying real money for ther colorful illusions .. if this ever happens sl dies .. so i hope it doesnt happen .. but i really hav2 wonder what ppl are thinking when they pay that tier

Jeanne 

---

You seem to forget that different people use SL in different ways. Your way is fine for you but others prefer different ways. For some people, 'owning' land for various reasons is the prefered way, and the monthly cost of it is very cheap. It's extremely cheap entertainment.

You've no need to worry that the fog you mentioned will lift. It won't - because it doesn't exist. You seem to imagine that you are smarter or cleverer than those who actually put money into SL, but you're not. Just like you, everyone who puts money in is well aware that it isn't actually necessary, but they do it because they want to - because it's extremely cheap for their own particular SL entertainment. Using SL and never putting money in isn't smart or clever. It's merely a choice that everyone knows.

[Phil Deakins]

The 2-tier system of tier is an interesting one but I'd imagine that it could be quite problematic with people breaking the rules too much and people owning different 'types' of land.

The idea of reducing tier has been dicussed at LL - and rejected at that time. Jack favoured it but it was rejected.

I favour the idea of much smaller jumps in tier, which would encourage people to get that extra bit - and keep on getting extra bits. Other than sheer money-making (nothing wrong with that), I don't see any reason to have such big jumps in tier, and I see what I believe are very good reasons not to have them, including that I don't think it would lose money for LL, except maybe in the very short term.

[Porky Gorky]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

The 2-tier system of tier is an interesting one but I'd imagine that it could be quite problematic with people breaking the rules too much and people owning different 'types' of land.

 

---

Yeah it would need to be automated I think, managed somehow through the land settings. By default all land would be non commercial and charged at a lower tier. However the owner would not be able to set items for sale on that land. Any prim rezzed would have the sell option grayed out. Go into your land options and check the "sell on this land" checkbox and that changes the land to commercial. You get a warning about an increase in tier (as you do when purchasing land) and have the option to back out before committing. I obviously am not a programmer and would not know how to achieve this but I bet it could be done. I guess vendors may be problematic.

[161488303349]

is kinda doable but probably never happen. but anyways if linden did then

would have to serverside enable/disable debit perms in scripts depending on where the script is running. would maybe also have to disable direct l$ transfers between accounts on non-commercial land as well to stop grey market activity

[Porky Gorky]

Yeah, I think they would have to allow direct resident to resident transactions to continue on any land. So the system could and would be gamed. But this is Second Life....whatever system is in place is going to be gamed, just as the MP is now. Just got to accept that fact and work aorund it as best as you can. 

I realise it is never going to happen, but I think something drastic needs to happen if SL ever hopes to retain and recover it's  users.

[161488303349]

i think linden could be more creative with Premium account offerings

like can get Premium and 1024m tier if buy an annual for $100. 4096m for annual $250. or something like that

other thing is smaller tier steps like Phil said

another big one i think is to allow groups to own private islands and pay for them with tier. that way Prem accounts can contribute tier as payments. linden would have to change the way tier worked tho. like we would have to pay our tier upfront. so before buying a mainland parcel then have to buy the tier first and then buy the land

+

if they did this all this then with your idea is maybe possible to go the other way and make commercial land cheaper than residential. the idea being that shops would move to the cheaper land and we end up with towns/cities, leaving the countryside for residents. dunno if that will work in every individual case but i think it would in most cases

some people will be quite happy to live in town/cities for the cheaper tier but i think as many if not more probably be even more happy to live in the country/beach areas away from the shops

[Lindal Kidd]

---

Julez Andrew wrote:

You are right that it can be too much for many peple. What about some free alternatives of SL ?

---

There are some.  Check out www.opensimulator.org

However, these free grids don't have anything like the amount of content and social interaction that you'll find in SL.  It's the virtual economy and the Linden Dollar that have made SL the preeminent virtual world.