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Process Credit Fees Raised. Again.


Pamela Galli
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1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

I could give several other similar examples and I'm sure msot others here can too. Even if merchants keep an inworld presence, it's generally not anywhere near as big as what they would have had if it wasn't for MP. Add to that the general drop in visible inworld activity and the clubs and such that have to clsoe down because nobody will rent the stores that are suppsoed to finance them - no, I don't think the 15 million guesstimate is an exaggeration. The loss is certainly far bigger than what they manage to make from the Marketplace.

I think that is very true overall. I have a quarter sim store but I am H&G (house and garden) which doesn't send out demos via the Marketplace like so many stores do. If you have clothes or something similar there really is VERY little reason to have more than a token store.  Honestly, today I tooks some stuff down at my shop to loosen up some prims so I could have a "home" again. Sometimes it gets boring standing around your building pad.   So yes, likely that wasn't the best decision made long ago.  Like many steps made, the general trend seems for The Lab to go for the short term solutions; they need more folks that see longer down the road methinks :D.

 

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10 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Yes, that's about right. Minus some less than 10 L$ items - LL doesn't get provision from those and plus the enhanced listing fees and maybe the LindEx fee when people pay on MP with RL money (although they would of course have to go through LindEx if they were buying in-world too). So, a little bit over a million - maybe close to two but I doubt it.

 

They probably have inworld stores but probably not as big. I have two examples.

I ocne had a long chat with one quite succesful and experienced builder/merchant - big enough he was making a full time living from SL - while he was working on scaling down his store from two sims two less than a quarter. He was very clear: he downsized inworld because all his sales were on MP anyway. It was mainland sims too btw so they're stil there - all abandoned land. That cost Linden Lab about 4000 dollars a year in lost tier - and that was just one single store.

A friend of mine used to have a full sim for her main store and a fairly large network of affiliate stores all over SL. The last affiliate store was at my place and we kept it only so she could have a place for a redelivery terminal and group discount vendors. We closed it last week because there hadn't been any action there for months so there was no point in keeping it. She only sells on MP now.

I could give several other similar examples and I'm sure msot others here can too. Even if merchants keep an inworld presence, it's generally not anywhere near as big as what they would have had if it wasn't for MP. Add to that the general drop in visible inworld activity and the clubs and such that have to clsoe down because nobody will rent the stores that are suppsoed to finance them - no, I don't think the 15 million guesstimate is an exaggeration. The loss is certainly far bigger than what they manage to make from the Marketplace.

 

10 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Yes, that's about right. Minus some less than 10 L$ items - LL doesn't get provision from those and plus the enhanced listing fees and maybe the LindEx fee when people pay on MP with RL money (although they would of course have to go through LindEx if they were buying in-world too). So, a little bit over a million - maybe close to two but I doubt it.

 

They probably have inworld stores but probably not as big. I have two examples.

I ocne had a long chat with one quite succesful and experienced builder/merchant - big enough he was making a full time living from SL - while he was working on scaling down his store from two sims two less than a quarter. He was very clear: he downsized inworld because all his sales were on MP anyway. It was mainland sims too btw so they're stil there - all abandoned land. That cost Linden Lab about 4000 dollars a year in lost tier - and that was just one single store.

A friend of mine used to have a full sim for her main store and a fairly large network of affiliate stores all over SL. The last affiliate store was at my place and we kept it only so she could have a place for a redelivery terminal and group discount vendors. We closed it last week because there hadn't been any action there for months so there was no point in keeping it. She only sells on MP now.

I could give several other similar examples and I'm sure msot others here can too. Even if merchants keep an inworld presence, it's generally not anywhere near as big as what they would have had if it wasn't for MP. Add to that the general drop in visible inworld activity and the clubs and such that have to clsoe down because nobody will rent the stores that are suppsoed to finance them - no, I don't think the 15 million guesstimate is an exaggeration. The loss is certainly far bigger than what they manage to make from the Marketplace.

So, what you're saying is that the existence of the Marketplace eliminates over four thousand full private regions?

I think that you're suffering from what we might call the Napster Fallacy - the idea that "bad" transactions have a one-to-one relationship to "good" transactions, so  every "bad" transaction represents a lost "good" transaction. What this doesn't take into account is that many of the  transactions done through the "bad" channel would never have taken place if there were only "good" transactions.

Also bear in mind that the idea of an on-line marketplace wasn't Linden Lab's in the first place, and that a region represents both income and an expense to the Lab. More regions not only equal more income, they also represent more expense.

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I didn't see ChinRey even suggest that " the existence of the Marketplace eliminates over four thousand full private regions?". I don't know where you got that from. Nevertheless, the marketplace has caused many full private regions to disappear.

 

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Also bear in mind that the idea of an on-line marketplace wasn't Linden Lab's in the first place,

That's true. What LL did was see that there's a lot of profit being made from item sales and they wanted a slice of it, so they bought the 2 most successful offworld systems and turned them into the marketplace, and, in the process, wiped out most of inworld stores. It's all been said before, so there's no need to dwell on it.

There was a time when the people at LL actually wanted SL to be an actual virtual world, but that era came to an end a long time ago. For most of it's existance, SL has been solely for profit, and nothing more. It's probable that nobody who works for LL now was even around in that era, so, for them, the current state has always been the norm, and what the founders created is irrelevant.

Edited by Phil Deakins
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20 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

I didn't see ChinRey even suggest that " the existence of the Marketplace eliminates over four thousand full private regions?". I don't know where you got that from. Nevertheless, the marketplace has caused many full private regions to disappear.

 

$15,000,000 (the figure for lost tier) divided by $3600 (the nominal annual cost of a full-price, full region) comes out to more than 4000 every day and at least twice on Sundays.

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2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

So, what you're saying is that the existence of the Marketplace eliminates over four thousand full private regions?

I'd guess about an even mix of vanished private sims and abandoned mainland but yes, I did do the math before I wrote that. ;)

But since you ask so nicely, let's reduce it to a very cautious 1,000 sims then. Even with that low estimate, MP still shows up as a net loss for LL.

 

2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

I think that you're suffering from what we might call the Napster Fallacy

The one thing I know about Napster and other music streaming services is that they put a lot of musicians out or work

 

2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Also bear in mind that the idea of an on-line marketplace wasn't Linden Lab's in the first place

I'm perfectly aware of that. I wasn't going to mention it here since there's no way to get it confirmed but I have been told several times by people who usually know what they are talking about that LL bought what was to become MP more as damage control than to add another revenue stream.

 

2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

More regions not only equal more income, they also represent more expense.

That's almost nothing. It doesn't cost much to keep one more region on the grid. It's the cost of the grid as a whole - what you have to pay regardless of whether you have 1,000 or 10,000 sims - that matters.

And of course, it's not as if LL gets MP for free either.

Edited by ChinRey
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7 hours ago, ChinRey said:
9 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Also bear in mind that the idea of an on-line marketplace wasn't Linden Lab's in the first place

I'm perfectly aware of that. I wasn't going to mention it here since there's no way to get it confirmed but I have been told several times by people who usually know what they are talking about that LL bought what was to become MP more as damage control than to add another revenue stream.

Yep, I don't even think it was a secret. I didn't realize you weren't OLD until this comment LOL.  And once the Linden Lab Marketplace took over the others it pretty much became mandatory to BE on the Marketplace.

 

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42 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

And once the Linden Lab Marketplace took over the others it pretty much became mandatory to BE on the Marketplace.

I'm surprised LL didn't try to increase their MP revenue before resorting to yet another fee increase. The 5% commission is actually very low, and I think an increase would be easier to swallow for many merchants. It might:

  • Generate some revenue
  • Encourage merchants to keep in-world stores, thus possibly increasing tier revenue
  • Avoid angering a key demographic

I haven't attempted to do the math, so it's quite possible that this would not be enough -- and the impact would of course depend on how much the commission were increased -- but it's still odd that that this wasn't the first option.

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7 minutes ago, Cain Maven said:

I'm surprised LL didn't try to increase their MP revenue before resorting to yet another fee increase. The 5% commission is actually very low, and I think an increase would be easier to swallow for many merchants. It might:

  • Generate some revenue
  • Encourage merchants to keep in-world stores, thus possibly increasing tier revenue
  • Avoid angering a key demographic

I haven't attempted to do the math, so it's quite possible that this would not be enough -- and the impact would of course depend on how much the commission were increased -- but it's still odd that that this wasn't the first option.

Well just like some designers are going back to their inworld stores (from venues) and perhaps not putting everything on the Marketplace (I don't) I am guessing that LL doesn't want to anger the creators more than they are (mostly the Marketplace that gets worse each month for searchability) AND of course they just raised the cash out again so that some folks will be paying $125 instead of that $1 .  I think that important demographic doesn't want to get hit again.

 

You know if they actually fixed the Marketplace so it was more usable (Dakota said that was a three year project) THEN perhaps the creators would get on board with the fee increase.   

And that new premium perk of 90 day histories was more a slap in the face than a "gift". Really?  That should have been across the board for everyone and I doubt it will sway many folks over to premium. 

Anyway it will be interesting to see what happens. 

Seems like a lot of decisions haven't been going all that well for The Lab lately.  The land changes might help. The obvious thing to me would be VAR regions - more space with the same (ish) prims. That would be good for lots of folks and welcome. If Opensim can do it then LL should be able to :D.  Of course that hurts mainland even more -- but I enjoy NOT having neighbors :D.

 

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5 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

The kind of perk that matters to me is something like the tier buy down and the bonus prims. Those were significant perks. 

I gave ya a heart but the bonus prims WERE for everyone, not just premium LOL.  But I do get your point. The new "perk" is pretty much insulting and hasn't done anything to foster smiles as far as I can tell. 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

I gave ya a heart but the bonus prims WERE for everyone, not just premium LOL.  But I do get your point. The new "perk" is pretty much insulting and hasn't done anything to foster smiles as far as I can tell. 

 

 

Right – it is ironic that something that I really would go premium for they just handed out to everyone.

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On 11/8/2017 at 6:32 AM, ChinRey said:

But it makes SL a tiny fraction better for a few and it doesn't seem to have any negative side effects. So as one step of a milllion on a stairway to heaven, it works.

Oh, but, you see, it does have a negative side effect, this thread, and the countless others regarding LL's "improvements" over the years are proof positive that things the lab says, or does, can be absolutely negative...even when we *think* the effects won't be(or shouldn't be, I suppose).

Though I do get what is meant by the statement, I disagree. Word of mouth is one of the most valuable tools that any organization has. The problem with this is that the organization needs to understand how word of mouth works, and the potential side effects. Positive word of mouth, even neutral word of mouth, often, has a relatively positive effect, overall. Negative word of mouth, however, can damage ANY organization. One that has as much negative word of mouth traveling about its userbase, is very damaging, even if the actions which the word of mouth covers was never intended to BE negative.

We can all him and haw all day long about the reasons retention is low, or why gaining new users is low...there are loads of factors that play a part in these issues. One of the biggest ones, one anyone that discusses SL outside of sl-related places, or even does a quick search on sl, is word of mouth. All the negative press that sl has had over the last decade-ish, has had an impact, even if we don't want to accept that, it's a fact. It's taken sl quite a long time to get away from some of that negative press. I have no doubt that, at least some folks at the lab, are grateful that sl has moved past some of those issues and concerns, just like those of us who love sl are grateful the bad press isn't as extreme as it once was.  There's little most residents can do to aid in creating good press, versus bad press, or the effects of either...but there is a HELL of a lot LL could do, even things that cost them nothing at all. They have no excuse, really. Bad word of mouth is kinda unavoidable when you're dealing with humans, we're a finicky lil species. But it's entirely possible to minimize it. These kinds of changes will do nothing to lend to that goal....nothing.

So, yeah, while offering this "benefit" to folks may not, in and of itself, seem to have a negative effect(or rather, negatively affect users, that is), the word of mouth about it, absolutely will. Just as the cash out fees being increased may not negatively affect a large portion of the grid(those that rarely, if ever, cash out, of which I guarantee there are far more than do), word of mouth about the fee increases, will impact sl as a whole. Perhaps not instantly-few things are that instant after all-but I am certain it will negatively impact how sl, and more importantly LL, are seen by potential new users as well as current ones alike. There's far too many folks already "on the fence" about LL. I don't know why anyone would want to create more. But...I suppose LL is getting good at creating more fences for folks to sit on..

I' honestly, feel pretty bad for all folks that cash out. Some people are already getting bent over without so much as a hello, much less dinner. This is so much worse..even just discussing and it kinda boils my water a bit. These people, the ones most affected by these erm.."changes"..are the backbone of sl, and really the only reason LL is still in business. Not a good idea to bite the hands that feeds you, lest ye wanna pull back a nub. 

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3 minutes ago, Tari Landar said:

Though I do get what is meant by the statement, I disagree. Word of mouth is one of the most valuable tools that any organization has.

I was thinking about the new "perk" in itself. The way it was presented was of course a marketing disaster.

 

7 minutes ago, Tari Landar said:

We can all him and haw all day long about the reasons retention is low, or why gaining new users is low...

Oh no! Don't get me started on that!

If somebody from Linden Lab wants to know how to triple the retention rate, they can IM me inworld. I'm not going to say anything about that on this forum again.

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If LL had simply introduced the 90 day records for everyone, instead of attempting to make it seem like a perk, everyone would have been happy enough with it - lots of shugged shoulders, of course, but happy shoulders :)

But, by pretending that it's an actual perk for certain users, and rolling it out as a bone to deflect from the increases in fees, was just plain stupidity.

Edited by Phil Deakins
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On 4/11/2017 at 12:56 PM, Richardus Raymaker said:

People that say sansar is money waste really not get it and for sure never been there.

Otherwise you know it works perfect in desktop mode to an VR not required. People seems to forget how sl where in the first few years. Just like sansar. Software that is in development. It's for sure not a money waste. Putting new money in secondlife is a big waste, old technology that's not up to good framerates and graphics. It's extreme expensive so most people can only use it in 'guest' mode.

And the the missing functionality like first person mode no fbx support wrong build scale. etc.

Time will tell, but i predict that new people go use sansar in few years !

 

 

I have been there ... made testing etc ... I wanted to believe could be a new beginning. But to me seems too complicate and boring with literally ages to download a single experience and when u do most of what u can do is admire how good was the artist that made it ... plus vr tech is still unviable ... gives nausea and requires more years to develop still ... so they'd better have invested in renewing sl code and graphics, bringing them to a contemporary standard by allowing large terrain sims and more prims than waste time on a niche project.

Edited by Naiman Broome
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On 2/11/2017 at 2:35 PM, Pamela Galli said:

 

So, for example, Processing $5000,  previously cost  $15, now costs $25, in the future it will cost $125. 

Sansar looks like a flop, so take it out on LL creators?

 And yes Linden Lab knows very well that while the supply of products has steadily grown, the demand has steadily decreased along with concurrency. Great time to stick it to merchants.  Oh and be sure in return to continue to ignore merchant pleas for reporting tools and many other things we used to have with Xstreet.  Give us nothing in return for a huge fee increase. 

 

I have to agree with Pamela here, this really sucks. "exciting improvements", REALLY????!!!! for who?

Oh and premium members, get happy, chat is down for 4 days now, also, another excellent news as well!

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20 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

you can't blame LL that you don't follow the blogs and announcements

I do blame LL actually for 5 days of chat down, is a lot, should be fixed right away, you actually seem happy about it? maybe you dont pay premium or dont need to use the service, no idea?. I do follow the blog and announcement that was made on 14th, still I do not enjoy this.

Edited by Marina Ramer
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27 minutes ago, Marina Ramer said:

I do blame LL actually for 5 days of chat down, is a lot, should be fixed right away, you actually seem happy about it? maybe you dont pay premium or dont need to use the service, no idea?. I do follow the blog and announcement that was made on 14th, still I do not enjoy this.

@Marina Ramer You shouldn't...with the amount of information they may have to migrate over, upgrades like this will take time. I rather them take the time they need to get information migrated correctly then to rush through it and possibly create other issues resulting in more downtime. You can still reach them via support ticket. Sorry but not sorry you can not get the immediate attention you need. Welcome to the world of technology. 

Edited by Lisa006 Baxton
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20 minutes ago, Marina Ramer said:

I do blame LL actually for 5 days of chat down, is a lot, should be fixed right away,

chat is not down because it's broken, so it needs no fixing.

They'r installing a new support sytstem.

I'm not happy about it, but also not pay my premium for that only and mine pays itself, have 3 premiums, from those two are grandfathered.

btw.. tickets system is operational... also is phone.. you'r not without support at all.

Our Support Portal upgrades are still in progress. During this period, Live Chat remains unavailable, but phone support is available for Concierge and Billing issues. All other issues can be resolved through a support ticket, which can be filed here:

https://lindenlab.freshdesk.com/support/tickets/new

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22 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

chat is not down because it's broken, so it needs no fixing.

They'r installing a new support sytstem.

I'm not happy about it, but also not pay my premium for that only and mine pays itself, have 3 premiums, from those two are grandfathered.

btw.. tickets system is operational... also is phone.. you'r not without support at all.

Our Support Portal upgrades are still in progress. During this period, Live Chat remains unavailable, but phone support is available for Concierge and Billing issues. All other issues can be resolved through a support ticket, which can be filed here:

https://lindenlab.freshdesk.com/support/tickets/new

Thank you for your answer, Id sent a ticket also as well on 14th, still no answer sadly. I am from Argentina and phone calls here to USA are just impossible to pay and even if I could, they dont offer support in Spanish. I am with my lindens stucked for  week now and really unhappy about this even when I udnerstand whats going on, I feel I am without support, actually..

 

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3 hours ago, Marina Ramer said:

Thank you for your answer, Id sent a ticket also as well on 14th, still no answer sadly. I am from Argentina and phone calls here to USA are just impossible to pay and even if I could, they dont offer support in Spanish. I am with my lindens stucked for  week now and really unhappy about this even when I udnerstand whats going on, I feel I am without support, actually..

 

 I can understand being unhappy, but regardless of how you(or anyone, really) "feel"...you are not without support, you are just too impatient to wait for them to get to you. I do get it though, we're all impatient sometimes, especially when we want something. Support is still there, it is simply that the support some *want* cannot be achieved at this very moment, because they're trying to improve it. 5 days with no answer could mean that the methods they have available for support right now are limited, and therefore backed up. That could mean that whoever is in charge of looking at your particular issue, has a bigger caseload in front of them than you think, so..you have to be patient. 5 days with no answer to your ticket might be annoying as all get out...but, really, it's not as huge of a deal as perhaps some of the other issues that people are putting tickets in for at this time. Live chat likely wouldn't be able to help with a "stuck linden" issue (I'm not sure what you mean by that, so I don't want to assume) and would advise you to put in a ticket or contact billing anyway. 

Also, you don't have to use the US number. Have you tried the number they have listed for Brazil, perhaps it will be easier for you to call? Brazil: 800-878-3076   If it's a billing issue, they're the ones to talk to anyway. You can also go back into your ticket that you created to see if perhaps you have gotten a reply but never got an email stating you had a reply(had that happen once, I didn't notice there was a reply until a day after it was already there). Or, an alternative, if you have still gotten no reply, but think you should have by now, you can update your own ticket by adding a response to it. But, remember, there is no real ticket support (unless there is some dire need-emergency type situation-and billing surely isn't) from closing hours on Friday afternoon/evening, until they get back in the office on Monday. So those aren't business hours (never have been) and don't count in that "5 days without support"

 

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  • 1 month later...

Here we go, It's above L$250  It's been trending up for a few weeks with people selling before Jan 3.

At this rate sellers may be better off waiting, because there may be a short term drop in L$ supply after this sell-off, and maybe we'll even see L$245.

LindeX.PNG

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On 05/11/2017 at 4:25 AM, Rya Nitely said:

Talking about the exchange rate, it will be very interesting to see what effect this will have on it as people rush to sell and cash out before January.

Very interesting. It's almost too late to sell before the fee increase, but the momentum is there, and now we could start seeing panic sellers.

Personally, I'm holding.

LindeX.PNG

Edited by Rya Nitely
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