Should Paid members get more

[greek Wingtips]

With austerity hitting many countries and people making savings,  SL members I have spoken to are scaling  down the land  ownership to bring down Land tiers costs, we know there are vast amounts of land sitting idle  that SL owns, so why not increase the amount  of square meters land one can buy without increasing the land tiers and for existing landowners give them the top up, 

This would help people from downscaling and would also encourage people to become paid members and buy land  " no" ?

An example would be what I'm am paying and may scale down or if it the amount of land was doubled and kept at the same price then sl lose nothing as its only Virtual space on Hard drives? this could even inject more people to buy land?

$25.00 for 4.096sq so why not increase that to 8.192sq for the same price????

 

What are you views on this

 

 

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

10 hours ago, greek Wingtips said:

 

 if it the amount of land was doubled and kept at the same price then sl lose nothing as its only Virtual space on Hard drives? this could even inject more people to buy land?

$25.00 for 4.096sq so why not increase that to 8.192sq for the same price????

 

Personally, I do think they should increase the tier allowance that they give Premium members, but I'm not sure that your suggested change would help LL.

LL would lose out on the above change -- currently they get $40 per month from people that own 8192 and that change would drop them to $25 per month, which is $15 less PER MONTH.

While it might encourage more people to buy land, I don't know if it would increase land ownership enough to offset that drop in their tier income.

 

Edited November 11, 2017 by LittleMe Jewell

[greek Wingtips]

But how many are giving up their land tiers and worse still walking away, we talking about global recession for most, so losing members is the same outlay, best keep customers than lose them, I don't have the figures as to how many paid members there are and what the figures are year to year, but would make interesting reading.

[Tari Landar]

59 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Personally, I do think they should increase the tier allowance that they give Premium members, but I'm not sure that your suggested change would help LL.

LL would lose out on the above change -- currently they get $40 per month from people that own 8192 and that change would drop them to $25 per month, which is $15 less PER MONTH.

While it might encourage more people to buy land, I don't know if it would increase land ownership enough to offset that drop in their tier income.

 

If you take into account how much empty land just sits there, wasting server space, completely unused, I don't believe they would take much of a hit at all, and it would most definitely have a positive impact (which, in my opinion and probably only mine, would benefit LL tremendously, especially right now when so many are more than kinda pissed off at them) 

But then we get back to positive word of mouth, how it can affect an organization and all of its members, which is what, *I* believe LL should be focusing on promoting, not demolishing. 

And now, an anecdotal incident about WOM  

I have a friend in rl who recently was featured on a tv show-well his business was because it was used by one of the participants to promote *her* business. Just the word of mouth alone has garnered him and his new business so much attention that they have had to hire more employees and create even more room on their end to accommodate. He has a pretty big circle of folks on social media, all of which were informed about not only his business when it first began(only a few short months ago), but also the upcoming feature on a tv show. The traffic from his circle, and all they informed was enough  on its own to garner a large amount of traffic(yes, the show increased it, but it began with only word of mouth advertising). WOM is more powerful than some realize, though I could discuss it for days on end. I just wish LL understood the power they have right at their fingertips, which would cost them very little, to nothing at all..but would benefit them in ways immeasurable. 

[Penny Patton]

While I don't want to dismiss questioning SL's pricing model out of hand, I think it's also worth keeping in mind several other factors.

• SL is has never been easy or fun to get into. New users struggle with it and usually give up after a short time.  This has always been a problem, but it seems to get worse over time.
• LL has always done a poor job of presenting SL. From the poorly scaled and proportioned starter avatars, to the complete lack of a proper new user tutorial, the bad camera placement and ugly default sky settings. Most people take one look at SL and go "Hah, no."
• Interactivity in SL is nearly non-existent. Compare SL to even the earliest 3D games from the 90's and you'll find SL coming up short. We have no NPCs. We're only just now on the cusp of getting animated mesh objects to use in our builds (and yet to see how well LL implements that.) We cannot interact with sky settings (ie: having the sky settings change depending on whether you're indoors our outside).
• LL's content creation tools are poorly developed. And I don't just mean those used by content creators, I mean those used by casual residents for the purposes of accessorizing their avatar or decorating their land. 

Regarding that last point, LL does a very poor job of showing people just how much value one gets for their land. I've seen people talk about a 4096sq.m. parcel as if it were barely enough room for a moderately sized house, yet that is exactly how much land I have and I already have more content on it than I've seen other people squeeze into a Homestead. And I've done this through some very basic techniques that somehow not even LL uses in their own public builds.

It's no wonder people wish land were cheaper, LL hasn't shown them how to get all the value they're paying for and the result is most people waste the land they have. Here's a few screenshots all from the same 4096sq.m. mainland parcel. Not different builds I've had at different times, all of these areas are a part of my mainland home right now. There's a lot more there, too. LL needs to do a better job of showing people how to get the most out of their SL experience but they don't even seem have anyone on staff who knows themselves.

 

 

[Chic Aeon]

IF Linden Lab gave folks a 1024 instead of a 512 free (tier of course, not the price of land) I believe that would help some and encourage folks to go premium.

BUT if they started cutting prices across the board not only would that hurt their tier income in a much more detrimental way, it would impact the private landlords who pay a lot of tier to The Lab.  Probably not good to get your biggest customers unhappy. 

I have been saying for awhile now that implementing VARS would be a positive step overall. Those are typically 4 x 4 regions but with less prims -- so think of four homesteads together. These are very popular in Opensim.

NOW extrapolating from the VAR scenario we can see that mainland would likely get hit MORE  as "some" folks moved to the new VARS. But IF The Lab could get more money from the introduction of VARS (and making them available to first time buyers) that would generate capital. They could THEN up the "free with premium" tier bonus to 1024 and hopefully encourage more folks to go premium to get land. I agree that even with extra prims and smart mesh there isn't all that much you can do with a 512 -- well you can but it is an adventure. 1024 would be better and there is certainly enough empty mainland out there (I would think) to make that feasible.

 

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

43 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

• LL's content creation tools are poorly developed. And I don't just mean those used by content creators, I mean those used by casual residents for the purposes of accessorizing their avatar or decorating their land. 

Regarding that last point, LL does a very poor job of showing people just how much value one gets for their land. I've seen people talk about a 4096sq.m. parcel as if it were barely enough room for a moderately sized house, yet that is exactly how much land I have and I already have more content on it than I've seen other people squeeze into a Homestead. And I've done this through some very basic techniques that somehow not even LL uses in their own public builds.

It's no wonder people wish land were cheaper, LL hasn't shown them how to get all the value they're paying for and the result is most people waste the land they have. Here's a few screenshots all from the same 4096sq.m. mainland parcel. Not different builds I've had at different times, all of these areas are a part of my mainland home right now. There's a lot more there, too. LL needs to do a better job of showing people how to get the most out of their SL experience but they don't even seem have anyone on staff who knows themselves.

This is so true.  I am not a creator and know very little about how to determine if something is made really well or not.  Searching, either inworld or the MP, takes forever to find what appears to be good stuff and even then I don't really know for sure -- just because something is more expensive doesn't mean it is worth a crap (which most of us learn the hard way).  Thus, I have no doubt that there are many improvements that could be made to the LI that I'm using on my land and ultimately have just as good or better quality stuff rezzed.

[Bree Giffen]

Oh I know! Give premium members the ability tor resize their avatars to 25% bigger than non-premium residents. People love to be bigger for some reason. No need to thank me! I'm just humbly offering my great idea. 

[ChinRey]

8 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

NOW extrapolating from the VAR scenario we can see that mainland would likely get hit MORE  as "some" folks moved to the new VARS.

I don't think it's possible for Linden Lab to hurt mainland much more than they've already done. Those of us who have managed to create something positive in some corner of mainland are so used to being discriminated by LL, one more blow is hardly going to be noticeable.

The exception are the people who are doing generic mainland rentals on a larg(ish) scale will suffer though. They are competing for the same customers as the private estates and already have the odds stacked heavily aganst them.

[Chic Aeon]

9 hours ago, ChinRey said:

I don't think it's possible for Linden Lab to hurt mainland much more than they've already done. Those of us who have managed to create something positive in some corner of mainland are so used to being discriminated by LL, one more blow is hardly going to be noticeable.

The exception are the people who are doing generic mainland rentals on a larg(ish) scale will suffer though. They are competing for the same customers as the private estates and already have the odds stacked heavily aganst them.

Ahhhh  -- that is true and I am on mainland (my shop; I am more or less living on my building pad these days) BUT you hadn't read my monetizing the gltyches post yet I gather LOL --- where the mainland could be populated again by letting folks buy the empty lands with gems instead of lindens :D. 

Personally I like the emptiness of mainland but it is sad as I do remember it when it was teaming with life (long before you came unless you are a family member). It was all pretty ugly then, but it was fun. 

[Chase01]

As others have already suggested, I think it would be great for the users, but I am not quite sure what financial repercussions this would have on LL in the long term. Even having access to the right data, I'd imagine it would be a controversial decision.

Penny is right though, outside of the basic tutorial there really isn't much guidance there and value sometimes comes through knowledge. Hell, a lot of newer residents I interact with don't even know about Premium ...

[greek Wingtips]

A good example I suppose would be me I have created what in my eyes is a nice scene of what the east end of London would have looked like in the 1888s during Jack the ripper's  terror reign, using all my 4096sq allocation, now I would love to expand and give SL members more to see but really jump from $25.00 per month to $40.00 per month  no way first the jump is too high , this is where LLs needs to look at the tier pricing, $25 per month is killing me  as it is

 

Edited November 13, 2017 by greek Wingtips

[Solar Legion]

I'm on a fixed income and $25 a month hasn't been much of a problem and I pay for Premium as well - monthly. 

$40 for an eighth of a region? Based on the tier fees for mainland that is a net profit for them of $15.63 per person paying for that level of tier.

Compare to the tier base for private regions where the owner is only making about $3.15 profit for the same size parcel. 

As much as I'd love to pay less for a larger parcel ... I can not agree anymore that they overcharge. 

[greek Wingtips]

I would love to expand my project for people, but their is no way I paying for more tier land at the price, LL's must know that their is a limit to what people can afford, lets not forget its server space, and used or not its sitting there,  how much land is LL sitting on that will never be bought?

[Hintswen Guardian]

Personally one thing I would love to see if premium gifts delivered directly to my received items. I have missed many gifts due to simply not logging in for months or not having the time to go and collect them. I've even missed some because I didn't realize there was a new gift (missed the treehouse this way).

I'm not downsizing yet, and I don't plan on it anytime soon with the current prices.

[LittleMe Jewell]

On 11/22/2017 at 3:59 AM, Hintswen Guardian said:

Personally one thing I would love to see if premium gifts delivered directly to my received items. I have missed many gifts due to simply not logging in for months or not having the time to go and collect them. I've even missed some because I didn't realize there was a new gift (missed the treehouse this way).

I'm not downsizing yet, and I don't plan on it anytime soon with the current prices.

Truth be told, you haven't really missed much by not getting a few.  

[BilliJo Aldrin]

2 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Truth be told, you haven't really missed much by not getting a few.  

I don't think I've ever picked up a premium gift, the few I've seen I've been like seriously?

[Hintswen Guardian]

6 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Truth be told, you haven't really missed much by not getting a few.  

Well the ones I've picked up I've liked but I think I only use one. I've seen the tree house and I would use it if I had it. 

[JoJo Aurelia]

After years of not being a premium member, I joined last month because I was sick and tired of taking days to get into new events. Going to events, besides making baby clothes, is all I do in Second Life. So, for that, it was worth it!

[Callum Meriman]

On 11/11/2017 at 7:31 PM, greek Wingtips said:

$25.00 for 4.096sq so why not increase that to 8.192sq for the same price????

They would need to drop the pricing of Full private sims from US$195 down to US$95 and homnesteads from US$95 to US$47 to counter the impact to rentals.

Homesteads for $47? Get to it please Labbies.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

On 11/18/2017 at 1:41 PM, greek Wingtips said:

I would love to expand my project for people, but their is no way I paying for more tier land at the price, LL's must know that their is a limit to what people can afford, lets not forget its server space, and used or not its sitting there,  how much land is LL sitting on that will never be bought?

And the real reason you want land prices lowered comes out.. Personal greed. You don't give a damn about anyone else. You want prices lowered so you can have more land. Your argument is sadly flawed. LL has no incentive to lower land prices. They have been asked for YEARS to lower land cost. you pay $25 USD a month for a 4096, on mainland i assume? I pay $18 USD for the same plot on an island estate.. Funny.. I wonder what benefits you are getting for your extra $7 that i dont get? If i have a land issue it gets fixed in minutes by the land owners CSRs or managers. Can you say the same about LL? 

[Penny Patton]

While I'm sure we'd all like more value for what we pay, I think LL can do that without lowering prices. Simply making it easier for people to get more out of the land they already have, like I said earlier, would be a huge step in the right direction, but other things LL can do include:

• Discouraging badly made content that is the source of most of SL's performance issues. Making it so people get better framerates and don't need excessively high powered hardware to run SL at higher graphics settings would go far in making SL more appealing and help retain new users who log in to check SL out. Making content that doesn't ruin performance isn't difficult, but no one does it because LL doesn't show them why it's important and penalize bad habits in ways the average user can understand.
• Providing more interactivity features allowing us to create more engaging content, and making it easy for people to use these features. Right now SL lets us create nice looking environments, but they're largely static with only rudimentary forms of interactivity. Basically a 3D chat room with dioramas for us to wander around in. Making it easy for creators to turn SL into a living, breathing world will offer up content creation possibilities that would make SL so much more fun. We need fully animated NPCs, the ability to affect windlight and camera settings via scripts, the ability to create actual non-attachment based HUD elements.
• Much of SL's content creation tools could be simplified as well as expanded. There's no reason one should need to learn scripting to create a chair, working door, or basic teleporter. Having scripting skills should allow you to do a whole lot more, but even casual users should be able to use a simple interface to create basic interactive objects.
• Presentation matters! Replace the old default sky settings with something that actually looks good! Move the SL camera to a better default position! Give the starter avatars proper proportions! Archive the Library and put more well made, basic content out there for new users to play with so they can see what SL is capable of and learn good creation habits.
• "Sink or swim" is not a good attitude to have towards new users. Create a real tutorial! I mean something feels like it was made by professionals that actually guides new users and connects them with the SL experience that will engage them the most. Create real, quality, building tutorials aimed at all levels of content creators. From pros trying SL for the first time, to the casual user who just wants to have fun making stuff in SL.

 This is just stuff off the top of my head, there is so much LL could do to make SL more engaging and exciting.

[Callum Meriman]

34 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

• Discouraging badly made content that is the source of most of SL's performance issues.

\o/ Jellybean parcels

Put out too much laggy alpha grass and people see a green blob of jelly instead of your home.

[Hintswen Guardian]

5 hours ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

And the real reason you want land prices lowered comes out.. Personal greed. You don't give a damn about anyone else. You want prices lowered so you can have more land. Your argument is sadly flawed. LL has no incentive to lower land prices. They have been asked for YEARS to lower land cost. you pay $25 USD a month for a 4096, on mainland i assume? I pay $18 USD for the same plot on an island estate.. Funny.. I wonder what benefits you are getting for your extra $7 that i dont get? If i have a land issue it gets fixed in minutes by the land owners CSRs or managers. Can you say the same about LL? 

The security of knowing your parcel will always be there. Whoever you are renting from could decide one day they want to close that estate and you would need to move. That alone makes it worth the difference to me. 

[greek Wingtips]

On 11/24/2017 at 12:19 AM, Drake1 Nightfire said:

And the real reason you want land prices lowered comes out.. Personal greed. You don't give a damn about anyone else. You want prices lowered so you can have more land. Your argument is sadly flawed. LL has no incentive to lower land prices. They have been asked for YEARS to lower land cost. you pay $25 USD a month for a 4096, on mainland i assume? I pay $18 USD for the same plot on an island estate.. Funny.. I wonder what benefits you are getting for your extra $7 that i dont get? If i have a land issue it gets fixed in minutes by the land owners CSRs or managers. Can you say the same about LL? 

You have not got a clue about how things work,  " Value for money" this is not about personal greed you idiot,( should not assume) it's about me paying for a service that over the years has deteriorated but the prices have steadily gone up, am not the only one complaining about prices, why do you think many land owners have walked away from thier land parcels or left SL, some because thier bored with sl but most is they cannot afford it anymore or is no insentive to stay.