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I don't understand what you mean. Anything we would do to collect money you can describe as a tax. No tax, no money, no business, no product...

Subscriptions, sales tax, property tax, feature unlocking, storage, transaction fees, utility bills...lots of ways...all I've said so far is that the property tax is too high (everybody agrees) and that I think sales tax (non inworld for example) is probably too low. 

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Ebbe Linden wrote:

Why does that matter? It's going to be a conversation we'll have for a long time. It's started now. Does it really matter how? 

I am not sure who that reply was for, but why it matters?

Because you have 80k primary customers – the landowners and content providers who to a varying degree make a living from doing business in SecondLife. All your tier revenue comes from this customer base directly, in addition to indirectly through the  content they trade on your platform. 

By announcing New & Shiny, without telling these people how to get there and how it might impact their business, you have seeded major uncertainty in your customerbase which can lead to a major loss of revenue for Linden Labs.  

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Ebbe I own a large store in SL on a full region of land If my sales start to drop because everyone one and their sl dog think sl is closing soon they are going to stop buying things they think they will not be able to move over to the new SL

I still have to pay my tier, if my sales drop that much i will quit my region simple as that and I am not alone here!

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Pamela Galli wrote:

Ebbe, at this point I am inclined to think that if we are moving to something better, then do not drag out the period of time in which there will be two parallel grids. Beta test the hell out of SL2 and when it is ready for prime time, give us time to do whatever it is we might need to do, then go back to one grid.

Diluting the customer base -- for merchants as well as LL -- while greatly increasing overhead is better done for a short rather than long period. (And who knows how much further dilution may be caused by Hi Fi.)

 

 

PS A lot of that fantastic new professional quality content? Is not created by the ones who uploaded and sell it.

Pam, you know It's a rare occassion that I take the Lab's side on anything, but here I have to agree with them. 2 grid is the only way this can work. This new grid will have many problems in the beginning. I don't think any1 can set a timeline. Maybe if SL was just some game, that would actually be easier. There are whole areas of SL that some of us don't even have much knowledge of.

At the same time, I completely understand your concerns, as I'm also spread thin, and only have a fraction of what I have in SL, in other worlds.

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Phoebe Avro wrote:

Ebbe I own a large store in SL on a full region of land If my sales start to drop because everyone one and their sl dog think sl is closing soon they are going to stop buying things they think they will not be able to move over to the new SL

I still have to pay my tier, if my sales drop that much i will quit my region simple as that and I am not alone here!

Same here -- four sims of houses and furniture. Life is not fair, I understand that, but I would like to know how fast the bandaid is going to be ripped.

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Ebbe Linden wrote:

I don't understand what you mean. Anything we would do to collect money you can describe as a tax. No tax, no money, no business, no product...

Subscriptions, sales tax, property tax, feature unlocking, storage, transaction fees, utility bills...lots of ways...all I've said so far is that the property tax is too high (everybody agrees) and that I think sales tax (non inworld for example) is probably too low. 

First, if you are just starting to read this thread now, I feel for you. Text to speech is a lifesaver in forums.

 

Second, I'm a full blown anarcho capitalist. So, I'm not against the Lab making money. I want the Lab to be rolling in dough. If the Lab does well, I'll do well. How you do that is important tho. As a merchant, I need things. I need a way to market products. I need affective advertising, something LL has never successfully created. You don't have to tax me, as I will willingly throw money at you if you give me something that is worth it. I want the Lab to create wealth for all of us with some kind of Mass Media system. It should generate tons of advertising opportunities that we will all pay for. Taxing, or any similar thing, doesn't create wealth, it just transfers it.

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Medhue Simoni wrote:


Ebbe Linden wrote:

I don't understand what you mean. Anything we would do to collect money you can describe as a tax. No tax, no money, no business, no product...

Subscriptions, sales tax, property tax, feature unlocking, storage, transaction fees, utility bills...lots of ways...all I've said so far is that the property tax is too high (everybody agrees) and that I think sales tax (non inworld for example) is probably too low. 

First, if you are just starting to read this thread now, I feel for you. Text to speech is a lifesaver in forums.

 

Second, I'm a full blown anarcho capitalist. So, I'm not against the Lab making money. I want to Lab to be rolling in dough. If the Lab does well, I'll do well. How you do that is important tho. As a merchant, I need things. I need a way to market products.
I need affective advertising, something LL has never successfully created. You don't have to tax me, as I will willingly throw money at you if you give me something that is worth it.
I want the Lab to create wealth for all of us with some kind of Mass Media system. It should generate tons of advertising opportunities that we will all pay for. Taxing, or any similar thing, doesn't create wealth, it just transfers it.

 

Very true. I used to have over 30 ad "enhancements". Then a bug appeared, and instead of being charged once per ad I was charged dozens of times.  I tried 6 ads last year, same thing happened. I would LOVE to throw money at LL. 

 

Also, on SLX we had data on how effective the featured item enhancements were. Here we have no information that would lead us to believe an enhancement has any effect.

 

 

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First, Ebbe, good (and surprising) to see your responses here. As you may have read above, many of us have written-off these forums as Linden-free territory.


Ebbe Linden wrote:

I don't understand what you mean. Anything we would do to collect money you can describe as a tax. No tax, no money, no business, no product...

Subscriptions, sales tax, property tax, feature unlocking, storage, transaction fees, utility bills...lots of ways...all I've said so far is that the property tax is too high (everybody agrees) and that I think sales tax (non inworld for example) is probably too low. 

Yeah. But two things: There's no magic bullet. Call it taxes, call it rents, either way, the market has a way of reading the writing of the invisible hand, wherever it writes. So as much as we want lower tier, that pain shifted to a tax on consumpiton / production / income... well, it's the same pain, and the same drag on the growth of the economy. (It's necessary, don't get me wrong: this is a business.)

And second, an idle musing that shifting the burden, if it's a good idea, need not await a whole new platform to have whatever beneficial effect you might expect from it. Indeed, might be best not to burden that new platform with proving a new revenue model, too.

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I hope LL are going to wave region setup costs for those wishing to move because I am sorry but it does not cost $1000 to set up a region its takes like 30 seconds the software is there it just takes a name in a database  ohh and grid coordinates so lets say it takes an hour whats that like $100 tops my company used to charge my out at £80 an hour as an analyst i think

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Phoebe Avro wrote:

I hope LL are going to wave region setup costs for those wishing to move because I am sorry but it does not cost $1000 to set up a region its takes like 30 seconds the software is there it just takes a name in a database  ohh and grid coordinates so lets say it takes an hour whats that like $100 tops my company used to charge my out at £80 an hour as an analyst i think

Good point! That set up fee is ridiculous. I likely would have gotten more sims, if not for that. Plus, it is not a very profitable fee. Yes, it's alot for basically doing nothing, but how often does LL sell sims now? The deterent the fee creates costs LL more money than it helps. At least in my opinion.

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Yep I am an alt and I am hiding my identity because I do not want my customes to know that I am going to stop doing any quality control on the products I sell them that I am no longer going to be available to support them when they have problems that documentation is going to be frozen so they'll have to work out for themseves how to fix problems that arise because of viewer upgrades and feature fixes and I am not going to worry about sustaining the reputation I have built up over half a decade for providing good stuff and standing behind it. I am just going to grab whatever I can get while I can from the naive users most of who don't even know they are sailing in a sinking ship and take the money and run. Maybe I'll set up shop again in SL2, maybe I won't, but LL won't be benefitting from my involvement. Sales tax is a voluntary donation to the government as most of those who operate in the black economy will confirm. Do you know any dealers who pay tax?


Oh and if you think the above strategy is despicable then think on. It is exactly what Ebbe is intending to do and in fact what LL has been doing for some time now.

Your business model is shot Ebbe. The only way you are going to sustain revenues in the dwindling.virtual economy that your naive marketing has provoked is by managing to persuade some gullible advertisers that they should hand you some cash. Actually the sort of organisations that are likely to be attracted to SL will probably want to pay in kind so I hope you enjoy a good butt plug.

"Is there going to be anything left?"

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Medhue Simoni wrote:


Phoebe Avro wrote:

I hope LL are going to wave region setup costs for those wishing to move because I am sorry but it does not cost $1000 to set up a region its takes like 30 seconds the software is there it just takes a name in a database  ohh and grid coordinates so lets say it takes an hour whats that like $100 tops my company used to charge my out at £80 an hour as an analyst i think

Good point! That set up fee is ridiculous. I likely would have gotten more sims, if not for that. Plus, it is not a very profitable fee. Yes, it's alot for basically doing nothing, but how often does LL sell sims now? The deterent the fee creates costs LL more money than it helps. At least in my opinion.

The problem with high land taxes for inworld shops is that you have to pay them even if you don't have sales. with sales tax on the marketplace you only pay if you have sales, this really help new business get started and all so helps small time merchants who don't have the $ to pay up front, they are all so the kind of merchants use their earnings for spending in SL which is or was a good part of the economy, this is especially true when the RL economy is not doing good and people don't wan't to spend RL $ in SL.   A lot of the small shop or shop for small niche markets bring a lot of diversity to SL but don't make nearly as much as the more mainstream shops. 

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welcome Ebbe to one of the worst forums on the net. personally i think SL 2.0 is an idea long over due. i have no idea if if will be done "right". but the idea is right on the mark. this is the first idea from LL that shows somebody actually has a clue. it is further my hope that SL 2.0 rids SL of over 90% of the people on this forum.

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Medhue Simoni wrote:


Ebbe Linden wrote:

I don't understand what you mean. Anything we would do to collect money you can describe as a tax. No tax, no money, no business, no product...

Subscriptions, sales tax, property tax, feature unlocking, storage, transaction fees, utility bills...lots of ways...all I've said so far is that the property tax is too high (everybody agrees) and that I think sales tax (non inworld for example) is probably too low. 

First, if you are just starting to read this thread now, I feel for you. Text to speech is a lifesaver in forums.

 

Second, I'm a full blown anarcho capitalist. So, I'm not against the Lab making money. I want the Lab to be rolling in dough. If the Lab does well, I'll do well. How you do that is important tho. As a merchant, I need things. I need a way to market products. I need affective advertising, something LL has never successfully created. You don't have to tax me, as I will willingly throw money at you if you give me something that is worth it. I want the Lab to create wealth for all of us with some kind of Mass Media system. It should generate tons of advertising opportunities that we will all pay for. Taxing, or any similar thing, doesn't create wealth, it just transfers it.

I've suggested several time for LL to make marketplace landing place ads to the community keywords they list on the marketplace home page, I'd bet I could increase my sales 4X in a week if I could market directly to the steampunk community.  and would galdly pay for this.  it woulden't be just a big advantage for be but for the whole community. 

But at the same time I support a reasonable raise in sales tax in exchange for cheaper land, the cheaper land is the more things people will buy to put on it.  If LL was to support it's self on just add revenue that the price of an add would cost so much that only the top merchants would be able to afford them, you end up with a protected market not a free market. 

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DesperadoReprise wrote:

Yep I am an alt and I am hiding my identity because I do not want my customes to know that I am going to stop doing any quality control on the products I sell them that I am no longer going to be available to support them when they have problems that documentation is going to be frozen so they'll have to work out for themseves how to fix problems that arise because of viewer upgrades and feature fixes and I am not going to worry about sustaining the reputation I have built up over half a decade for providing good stuff and standing behind it. I am just going to grab whatever I can get while I can from the naive users most of who don't even know they are sailing in a sinking ship and take the money and run. Maybe I'll set up shop again in SL2, maybe I won't, but LL won't be benefitting from my involvement. Sales tax is a voluntary donation to the government as most of those who operate in the black economy will confirm. Do you know any dealers who pay tax?

 

Oh and if you think the above strategy is despicable then think on. It is exactly what Ebbe is intending to do and in fact what LL has been doing for some time now.

Your business model is shot Ebbe. The only way you are going to sustain revenues in the dwindling.virtual economy that your naive marketing has provoked is by managing to persuade some gullible advertisers that they should hand you some cash. Actually the sort of organisations that are likely to be attracted to SL will probably want to pay in kind so I hope you enjoy a good butt plug.

"Is there going to be anything left?"

I see you've already stopped doing quality control on your punctuation.

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Is it that I misunderstand or is this truly the worst piece of marketing I'ver ever seen? You announce to your customers that everything they have purchased and will purchase in the year to come will soon be obsolete? Already people are dumping sims. Is this suicide on the part of Linden Labs? I am astonished.

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Chance Byron wrote:

Is it that I misunderstand or is this truly the worst piece of marketing I'ver ever seen? You announce to your customers that everything they have purchased and will purchase in the year to come will soon be obsolete? Already people are dumping sims. Is this suicide on the part of Linden Labs? I am astonished.

I read somewhere they are appointing the guy who was responsible for New Coke as the new LL VP of Marketing.

"Stole your dreams and paid you with regret"

 

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Medhue Simoni wrote:


Phoebe Avro wrote:

I hope LL are going to wave region setup costs for those wishing to move because I am sorry but it does not cost $1000 to set up a region its takes like 30 seconds the software is there it just takes a name in a database  ohh and grid coordinates so lets say it takes an hour whats that like $100 tops my company used to charge my out at £80 an hour as an analyst i think

Good point! That set up fee is ridiculous. I likely would have gotten more sims, if not for that. Plus, it is not a very profitable fee. Yes, it's alot for basically doing nothing, but how often does LL sell sims now? The deterent the fee creates costs LL more money than it helps. At least in my opinion.

The current SL architecture makes virtual land extremely inefficient for the Lab. Every 256 x 256 meter chunk of the world needs a separate instance of server software running and calculating everything on it at least 8 times per second even when its completely empty, which most regions are at any given time. Meanwhile, I can't get to the one 256 x 256 chunk I want to get to this afternoon because it's full of avatars. I've seen nothing that says to me that the Lab is remotely interested in having more regions added to the current grid. The setup fee is there only to dissuade people from creating new regions and instead get them to existing ones to reduce churn.

However, a new architectural system may well make land a much more efficient proposition - one comment I saw from Ebbe was that a new approach could be done today with only 20% of the computing infrastructure necessary.

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Phoebe Avro wrote:

Inworldz have much larger regions

A lot of comments I see remind me of some old cowboys looking at the front bumper of a newfangled horseless carriage and saying, "Heck, you could never hitch a team to that thing - even one horse would pull it right off."

REGIONS ARE A BAD IDEA. If you have regions you have avatar limits; you have region crossing issues; etc. And Inworldz has their share of those too. Regions only exist because an engineer decided it was the best solution to making a virtual world back in 2002 when some of the beta testers of Second Life were still on dial-up connections.

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I don't know a new world with better functionality sounds good ofcourse why having things worse if it can be better after all.

I predict I will indeed hasitate from now on to obtain virtual products with often a real price, in the "old Second Life" without the quarantee we can keep the belongings and more importantly our memories.

Even though it are L$ we spend it easily counts up in a real bill.

I always felt merchants needed all the support they could get so I gladly obtained beautiful  creations and had fun doing so.

So from a customer point of view the merchants may have a valid fear their income will decrease if more people think like I do which is frequently not the case luckely :matte-motes-asleep-2:

Therefore I am neutral when it comes to developing this new world I must admit I'd rather was to be more positive but throwing away 7 years is not easy while I realize SL is outdated.

Also I think the merchants who make our Second Life more beautiful need more reassurance just so their customers remain to obtain their products.

While I think it sounds very cool I think the implications may be complex as well.

What does our social network do for example or the people we consider most important?

Do they stay in the old world or in the new one and what decision will I make based on that?

I have no clue to be honest.

For this moment I will patiently wait for more news in hopes the transition will be as smooth as possible and perhaps even our inventory because we many of us carry a decade of memories with us.

 

Happy 11-th birthday by the way :matte-motes-smile:

 

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Phoebe Avro wrote:

So no Private regions is a good idea ?

I am not interested in mainland i never go there

 

I don't see why you couldn't have your own "region" that was the size of an entire Second Life continent with a reworked concept of the way the physics worked. The idea of one "grid" divided up into "regions" isn't necessarily the only way of doing things - there could be multiple grids worlds, all of them comparatively seamless. One of the things Ebbe Linden mentioned right after he was hired was the idea that Second Life (the idea, not necessarily the existing "grid") could be marketed as multiple different brands for different interests.

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Ebbe Linden wrote:

I don't think we can assume that the SL tech and experience as we know it can last forever and that something better will not come around some day. It's either us or someone else. By letting you know that we are working on something I've already seen a lot of positives come out, and yes, some doomsday stuff, but there are always a group of people who dislike change (even for the better). So, in the future, you will move to something better, and we plan to provide that.

Hi Ebbe, thanks for dropping by!

I think we are all in agreement that the idea of creating a new and "better" virtual world is by no means a bad thing. And, yes, I'd probably rather LL do it than, say, Facebook. And I think we probably mostly understand, in theory anyway, why it makes sense to build from scratch, rather than trying to tinker with code that must be riddled, at this point, with weird little anachronisms and band-aids.

My concern, and that of others I think, is that there are too many questions about the transition from SL 1.0 to 2.0. (We have, of course, other concerns, about the shape of this future VW, but those are separate.)

The problem, as Maddy noted above, is that a lack of solid information breeds speculation. I do understand that work on this new VW is probably still in pretty early stages, but if there are not some more concrete assurances about the relationship between SL 1.0 and 2.0, on a number of fronts, I very much fear that SL 1.0 is going to be a virtual ghost town long before the new one is ready to take its place.

Whether or not LL is ready to make guarantees about the fate of SL 1.0, I think that some sort of serious damage control is needed, because you need SL 1.0 to be thriving when SL 2.0 opens. If people leave here in any numbers because they perceive it as a dying world, or one no longer worth investing in, many, perhaps most, won't be back to try out your new shiny.

I'll just mention one point that comes immediately to mind. The only possible reason to continue operating SL 1.0 after the new world opens is because the two are radically different, and not just in terms of tech. If they are similar in other regards, but one is merely "better," why would anyone stay on in SL 1.0? And if that is the case, then making a long term investment of any kind here makes little sense.

If, on the other hand, the two worlds are going to be very different in ways other than their codebase, then some clarity on that is important.

But, honestly, given what I've heard, I frankly don't believe that LL won't pull the plug on SL 1.0 shortly after the creation of the new version. Because I can see absolutely no reason why anyone would stay here.

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