Hey Humble!

[Suzanna Soyinka]

Normally I don't have any time for this forum, I'm usually far too busy managing things on the grid we all know and love.

Regardless its become increasingly evident that between you and the investors board, you've completely run out of ideas on how to maintain the grid through current economic conditions.

Here's some free advice from a long time land owner and content provider for your grid.

It Works For Wal-Mart:

Its the business theory of "stack it high and sell it cheap". Heres the deal, you already got the stack it high process covered. You've increased class 5 sims per server to 16 from its original limit of 4. Now I'm not going to assume the worst and say you're putting 16 class 5 sims on the same servers you were using 4 years ago, I'm well aware that technological capabilities have increased and just about anyone with a marginal business interest that involves web based services can colocate with Limestone on some of the highest end hardware currently available on the market, so I'm going to assume the best of you and the Lab and assume that you only increased the class 5 server population to 16 because the hardware you upgraded to could do it...but still 16 class 5 sims on a server is quite a lot.

Now lets talk about how much that rack mount actually costs monthly...cause I'm colocated myself to provide the services I provide to the grid and guess how much I pay for that? Wow, almost as much as I pay to share a rack mount with sixteen other customers of yours...except I have all the processors and all the memory to myself.

Simple facts are is you're charging way too much. The market premium that the economy could bear four years ago isn't the same as it is today, attempting to paddle through this economic dip while maintaining premium pricing that was ostensibly "affordable" 4 years ago is probably not going to work.

So, sell it cheap doesn't even really mean sell it cheap, it means adjust your market rate to the current economy.

This will achieve a few things almost automatically.

1.) Land will become more obtainable to the end user. Creating higher grid concurrency and retention.

2.) Real Estate Operations will be able to buy more sims in volume due to the adjustments, increasing land availability options to the end user, thus promoting further retention.

3.) Businesses that depend on high user volume will see an increase in revenue from the influx of new land owners that now have places on the grid of their own, that need the goods and services that these on grid businesses provide.

So you can think tank it up all you want up there but unless you and your board and the investors board can actually sit down and understand that virtual land at its current pricing is a luxury that is not ostensibly affordable to the prospective new end user, you will not achieve a Second Life that doesn't require Google AdSense on its main page (even for high end premium accounts, I might add) to try to keep up your bottom line.

The Lab's profit has always been based in the ability to offer land to the end user, which the end user is more than happy to pay for, the current premiums for wholly owned virtual estates in Second Life are well in excess of a luxury expense at this time, in almost all the world economies Linden Labs provides with access to the grid.

So TLDR: Its the Economy, Stupid! Try working some financial models that involve reducing pricing and increasing volume and see if they float with the investors board.

And with that....I'm off. Agree, disagree, whatever, don't really intend to argue my points with anyone. Take care all.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Sorry Rod doesn't come here, so you are preaching to the choir.

[Ted McGregor]

Your request for Linden Lab's next slogan  "Humble pricing for humble needs." has been noted and was filed accordingly. :robotindifferent: 

 

Please hold while "Your world. Our over-calculation." is re-evaluated.

[Sidnella Riler]

When people says, oh don't bother Linden employees do not read the forums, who in their right mind, wouldn't read what people says about them or their company, I m sure they do, I would say don't bother ranting, because even if they read it, I m sure they know already how to make money, without having to bother about what we rant about, because we might like it and enjoy it if we are still here.

[Christin73]

No wonder its so laggy.

[Czari Zenovka]

On the Merchant Forum Rod was actually "called out" to come to that forum to address an ever-increasing stack of "issues" about which many merchants are unhappy, to say the least.  Rod actually did post on that thread and said that LL staff read the forums daily. 

Other than that statement, I have no idea if they do or how often, but I agree that at least some representatives of a given company should read what their customers are thinking.

[Teagan Tobias]

Just a thought here, I could be wrong. LL is following the lead of their users. To get the better things on SL you need to spend a LOT of money, why should land be any different. Like I said, just a thought and IMHO.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

Right, because  every company has lowered their prices since the economy dropped out from under us.. prices has steadily risen since the economy tanked. And the sizes of food products has gotten smaller.. Pasta is 12 oz now instead of 16, tuna is 5oz instead of 7, sugar and flour are in 4 lb bags instead of 5, and the prices have all gone up! So where is this business model that shows drooping prices during a recession? AI have yet to see one company doing it. Not even Wal-mart.

[Perrie Juran]

We forget how thet raise the price before dropping it to the 'new low (higher than it was) price.'

[161488303349]

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

Right, because  every company has lowered their prices since the economy dropped out from under us.. prices has steadily risen since the economy tanked. And the sizes of food products has gotten smaller.. Pasta is 12 oz now instead of 16, tuna is 5oz instead of 7, sugar and flour are in 4 lb bags instead of 5, and the prices have all gone up! So where is this business model that shows drooping prices during a recession? AI have yet to see one company doing it. Not even Wal-mart.

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yes this pretty much perfectly explain how it works in a recession

in the opposite economic climate it go the other way. greater volumes are produced on a package size basis

you made the pretty astute observation that this is counter to how many of us understand supply side economics

the goal objective of the supplier being to maintain consistently healthy profit margins.  which are fundamentally dictated by the limits/size of the customers budget at any given time in the cycle

 

[161488303349]

just add here how this would work in SL. if linden ever did it

+

the tier to damn high

reduce tier from $295 to $195. reduce prims to 5000. put 3 times as many sims on a server box as there are now

edit:

or 7500 prims and 2x

whichever numbers that supplier thinks customers will buy

is cheaper budget wise. but we get less for our money than before

[Deltango Vale]

Linden Lab in notorious for disliking its customers. In their eyes, we are all a bunch of blithering idiots with psychological and emotional problems. Honestly, a lot of smart people have tried to help Linden Lab over the years, but the company ignored them completely. As for Rod Humble, cough, you don't really believe he would lower himself to actually dealing with customers, do you? The last time he dained to communicate with us peasants was several years ago when he basically told us to s*d off.

[Suspiria Finucane]

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Deltango Vale wrote:

 As for Rod Humble, cough, you don't really believe he would lower himself to actually dealing with customers, do you? The last time he dained to communicate with us peasants was several years ago when he basically told us to s*d off.

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You know I love ya girl but hehe I must disagree. Personal experience showed me he does listen and will do something if applicable. Then again, I could be special or something. :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

[Czari Zenovka]

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Deltango Vale wrote:

As for Rod Humble, cough, you don't really believe he would lower himself to actually dealing with customers, do you? The last time he dained to communicate with us peasants was several years ago when he basically told us to s*d off.

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As mentioned in my prior post in this thread, Rod did respond in a thread on the Merchant's Forum which can be found on this page.  The date was October 11, 2012, so a "Rod Sighting" on the off official SL forums has been seen more recently.

Edit: Spelling

[Perrie Juran]

 

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Czari Zenovka wrote:

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Deltango Vale wrote:

As for Rod Humble, cough, you don't really believe he would lower himself to actually dealing with customers, do you? The last time he dained to communicate with us peasants was several years ago when he basically told us to s*d off.

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As mentioned in my prior post in this thread, Rod did respond in a thread on the Merchant's Forum which can be found

on this page

.  The date was October 11, 2012, so a "Rod Siting" on the off official SL forums has been seen more recently.

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I made this sighting just a couple weeks ago.  I should have put a date on the image.  His presence did not to my knowledge result in any posts.