Why does LL cost so much?

[Rhonda Huntress]

This is not an MMO.  You are not renting CPU cycles for finite, limited and preloaded content, you are renting something like this  with limitless possible content generated on the fly by other residents.

In the end it is all about cost | value ratio of the product.  Is the value you get from renting a full sim worth the costs to you?  If no, then don't rent the sim.

[Rhonda Huntress]

This is not an MMO.  You are not renting CPU cycles for finite, limited and preloaded content, you are renting something like this  with limitless possible content generated on the fly by other residents.

In the end it is all about cost | value ratio of the product.  Is the value you get from renting a full sim worth the costs to you?  If no, then don't rent the sim.

[Rolig Loon]

That's really a nice open-ended question for discussion, but we can't really discuss anything in Answers.  The forum's not set up right for back-and-forth.  You really ought to re-post this in General Discussion.

Since you were looking for an answer, however, the most basic one is that SL is not a game -- at least not a game in the same sense as WoW or most other on-line games you might have played.  Almost all of those games do most of their thinking right on your own computer.  There's very little server overhead behind them because all of the graphics is pre-packaged, not created and continuously updated by users.  Second Life, on the other hand, has most of its heavy-duty stuff on servers that communicate with your viewer. They have to keep track of all that user-created stuff and send second-by-second updates to viewers.  Take a look at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Server_architecture .  There are over 8000 servers for supporting the regions alone, plus hundreds of others for handling inventory databases, communication, mapping, Marketplace, accounting .....  Servers aren.t cheap, and they aren't cheap to maintain.  The land fees you pay for a region are paying to keep those servers on line and well-oiled.  Plus a lot of other things.

[Innula Zenovka]

It's not really an answer to your question,but if you want to own a region there's no particular reason to pay the set-up fee.

Just take a look at the Regions For Sale: Full Private Island forum and you will see that it's possible to buy a full region for little more than the cost of the transfer fee plus the outstanding tier the seller has already paid.

As I recall, LL will even move the island for you for free.

 

[Alwin Alcott]

there is really nobody who tells you you have to buy a sim, without land your SL experience still can be perfect.

If you want land, start with a parcel of 512 sqm, next to your premium fee that will cost you no nothing. Or go rent a small plot from another resident.