Millennials & Land Costs?

[Blush Bravin]

On 11/29/2017 at 9:47 AM, Parhelion Palou said:

LL said that moving SL to the cloud could allow them to offer new/different ways to have land. (Paraphrased) The statement was vague. It's likely to be a few years before they can move SL to the cloud, so I wouldn't worry about it yet.

 

 

If you have the patience to watch the whole video, great, if not speed through to the last few minutes where she sums up her talk. It sounds like this project is on the fast track.

[Lux Voxel]

8 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

 

If you have the patience to watch the whole video, great, if not speed through to the last few minutes where she sums up her talk. It sounds like this project is on the fast track.

Really really interesting stuff! Wish LL the best of luck with their decisions. Look forward to the future to come. Thanks for sharing this

Edited December 8, 2017 by Haggerty

[Sassy Romano]

On 11/28/2017 at 11:49 PM, Haggerty said:

It raises a lot of questions as how much does it cost Linden Labs to support a virtual sim? I doubt it costs them a high fee a month to maintain the sim, so where does this $295 a month fee come from?

The common mistake that some people make is that they say "I can get web hosting for $xxx (which is a server in a rack) so why does a sim (which is a server in a rack) cost so much more?"

Second Life is a product, software with a development lifecycle.  It's not just about hosting a bit of existing standard software on a server like a web server.  You should expect the fee to go towards software development and all that entails as well as the hosting, oh and they'll want some profit too for future ventures as Second Life won't go on forever.

[Lux Voxel]

On 12/9/2017 at 3:20 PM, Sassy Romano said:

The common mistake that some people make is that they say "I can get web hosting for $xxx (which is a server in a rack) so why does a sim (which is a server in a rack) cost so much more?"

Second Life is a product, software with a development lifecycle.  It's not just about hosting a bit of existing standard software on a server like a web server.  You should expect the fee to go towards software development and all that entails as well as the hosting, oh and they'll want some profit too for future ventures as Second Life won't go on forever.

I understand that completely now. All of the fees are ways to fund Linden Labs for their improvements and future with new projects, I'm not sure about buying into  the "updating second life software" thing at this point. 

Edited December 11, 2017 by Haggerty

[Lux Voxel]

On the other hand, what about people that want to have a house? They aren't going to make money from having the house but I am really finding it unbelievable people are paying $199USD for a residential sim, virtual. Maybe allowing the user to host the server themselves would be a good fix for LL but is that possible? I appreciate all the comments here but I'm trying to wrap my head around this better. I get LL needs money to fund the next upcoming projects, but why not focus on the people and its members. Apparently people used to be able to afford homes on here. I'm done hearing about parcels and sharing land, that seems all ridiculous to me, what a scheme that is.

Why hasn't other companies taken advantage of this and recreated a world that promoted open world, private sims, and creations? There aren't any from my knowledge. Where is the competition that is supposed to be keeping LL on their toes? I love SL, love its community, but I am concerned its roots are long gone in 2017. I need to figure out if spending my time here with friends and colleges is a good investment or maybe I'm getting baited into a down-spiraling environment where its member are being abused. With the recent booms coming in 3d-modeling and virtual reality, who is going to most likely replace and take the community here?

I am reading online and no one is discussing this issue. I see the amount of sims running are becoming less and less each year. Are they killing SL and going to create something new in upcoming years to compete with some company I haven't heard of yet?

 

Edited December 11, 2017 by Haggerty

[Parhelion Palou]

4 hours ago, Haggerty said:

On the other hand, what about people that want to have a house? They aren't going to make money from having the house but I am really finding it unbelievable people are paying $199USD for a residential sim, virtual. Maybe allowing the user to host the server themselves would be a good fix for LL but is that possible? I appreciate all the comments here but I'm trying to wrap my head around this better. I get LL needs money to fund the next upcoming projects, but why not focus on the people and its members. Apparently people used to be able to afford homes on here. I'm done hearing about parcels and sharing land, that seems all ridiculous to me, what a scheme that is.

Why hasn't other companies taken advantage of this and recreated a world that promoted open world, private sims, and creations? There aren't any from my knowledge. Where is the competition that is supposed to be keeping LL on their toes? I love SL, love its community, but I am concerned its roots are long gone in 2017. I need to figure out if spending my time here with friends and colleges is a good investment or maybe I'm getting baited into a down-spiraling environment where its member are being abused. With the recent booms coming in 3d-modeling and virtual reality, who is going to most likely replace and take the community here?

I am reading online and no one is discussing this issue. I see the amount of sims running are becoming less and less each year. Are they killing SL and going to create something new in upcoming years to compete with some company I haven't heard of yet?

 

Pretty much anyone who is willing to part with a US dollar a week can have a place to live in SL. The majority wouldn't want an entire region -- that's a lot of space to terraform, landscape, and build on. A 4K sqm parcel seems to be the favorite size; that's 1/16 of a region. You think selling or renting parcels is a scheme, but that's how it's done and it works well.

Nobody is interested in replacing SL. I haven't heard of anything in development that works the way SL does. Linden Lab is spending a lot of money to improve SL; they want to keep it running for many more years. BTW, region loss is now at the lowest loss rate in 2 years.

If you'd like cheap, there's OpenSim -- try one of the OpenSim grids where you can host your own server.

[MoiraKathleen]

4 hours ago, Haggerty said:

On the other hand, what about people that want to have a house? They aren't going to make money from having the house but I am really finding it unbelievable people are paying $199USD for a residential sim, virtual. Maybe allowing the user to host the server themselves would be a good fix for LL but is that possible? I appreciate all the comments here but I'm trying to wrap my head around this better. I get LL needs money to fund the next upcoming projects, but why not focus on the people and its members. Apparently people used to be able to afford homes on here. I'm done hearing about parcels and sharing land, that seems all ridiculous to me, what a scheme that is.

Why hasn't other companies taken advantage of this and recreated a world that promoted open world, private sims, and creations? There aren't any from my knowledge. Where is the competition that is supposed to be keeping LL on their toes? I love SL, love its community, but I am concerned its roots are long gone in 2017. I need to figure out if spending my time here with friends and colleges is a good investment or maybe I'm getting baited into a down-spiraling environment where its member are being abused. With the recent booms coming in 3d-modeling and virtual reality, who is going to most likely replace and take the community here?

I am reading online and no one is discussing this issue. I see the amount of sims running are becoming less and less each year. Are they killing SL and going to create something new in upcoming years to compete with some company I haven't heard of yet?

 

In terms of other existing virtual worlds most similar in concept to SL, there are hundreds of OpenSim grid communities out there, plus at least one other which started out as OpenSim and then went a different path on their own.  You also used to be able to (and maybe still can) download sim-on-a-stick and run your own sims on your own computer.  

Whether any of these really are competition or not depends on what factors you want to compare, and how important certain things are to you.  I haven't been to any of the OpenSim grids for six months or so, but I did own a sim on one and have an account on another more commercial variation for 2 years.  Personally, I found that the longer I was in SL, and the more familiar I became with things in SL, the more I noticed shortcomings with my experiences on the other grids. 

This was my experience, others may have different opinions. 

[Lux Voxel]

1 hour ago, Parhelion Palou said:

Pretty much anyone who is willing to part with a US dollar a week can have a place to live in SL. The majority wouldn't want an entire region -- that's a lot of space to terraform, landscape, and build on. A 4K sqm parcel seems to be the favorite size; that's 1/16 of a region. You think selling or renting parcels is a scheme, but that's how it's done and it works well.

Nobody is interested in replacing SL. I haven't heard of anything in development that works the way SL does. Linden Lab is spending a lot of money to improve SL; they want to keep it running for many more years. BTW, region loss is now at the lowest loss rate in 2 years.

If you'd like cheap, there's OpenSim -- try one of the OpenSim grids where you can host your own server.

But why limit users to using a certain amount of prims and certain amount of space?

Dreaming with this one; Why not a full private land sandbox for home and not in the directory.  <- Christmas Gift IDEA  

I was looking at the grid survey but if you say its the least that's great. I have seen some beautiful sims that are breath taking on SL, I wont be leaving this guy. Thanks for the advice!

1 hour ago, moirakathleen said:

In terms of other existing virtual worlds most similar in concept to SL, there are hundreds of OpenSim grid communities out there, plus at least one other which started out as OpenSim and then went a different path on their own.  You also used to be able to (and maybe still can) download sim-on-a-stick and run your own sims on your own computer.  

Whether any of these really are competition or not depends on what factors you want to compare, and how important certain things are to you.  I haven't been to any of the OpenSim grids for six months or so, but I did own a sim on one and have an account on another more commercial variation for 2 years.  Personally, I found that the longer I was in SL, and the more familiar I became with things in SL, the more I noticed shortcomings with my experiences on the other grids. 

This was my experience, others may have different opinions. 

It takes a server to host the sim in the current way of life around here but i'm no genius, would LL look into letting residents host their own? Thanks!

[Klytyna]

6 hours ago, Haggerty said:

Where is the competition that is supposed to be keeping LL on their toes? I love SL, love its community, but I am concerned its roots are long gone in 2017. I need to figure out if spending my time here with friends and colleges is a good investment or maybe I'm getting baited into a down-spiraling environment where its member are being abused. With the recent booms coming in 3d-modeling and virtual reality, who is going to most likely replace and take the community here?

Nobody is discussing this issue because... It isn't an issue.

Now I understand that devout believers in the "free market fallacy" actually think that in a normal world, "forward thinking tycoon wannabes" will constantly start new competition to old firms and "keep them on their toes", but the reality is vastly different.

The reason NOBODY is making any serious attempt to create a rival SecondLife style product, to compete with SecondLife is because virtually ALL the potential demand for a SecondLife style product is currently being met by... SecondLife...

The infrastructure costs in setting up a serious contender are such that there's basically bugger all chance of making enough of a return on your investment, fast enough to appease your Merchant Bankers, let alone make any damn profit for your self.

As for "taking the community here" to some NEW system... LL has spent FOUR years trying to port the SL userbase to Project Stupid, in Glorious Vomit Cam, and with bugger all success. Philip Not-A-Linden has spent a similar time period trying to drag us all to Low Fidelity (a system he originally had to 'crowd fund' because initially, the Bankers would not fund it because of the lack of potential return on their investment in a realistic time frame).

What you are basically asking is why Billy-Bob Nomates, a trainee car mechanic from Des Moines, doesn't open a huge factory and produce an innovative range of new cars in numbers large enough to put Ford & GM out of business...
 

[Lux Voxel]

I

24 minutes ago, Klytyna said:

Nobody is discussing this issue because... It isn't an issue.

Now I understand that devout believers in the "free market fallacy" actually think that in a normal world, "forward thinking tycoon wannabes" will constantly start new competition to old firms and "keep them on their toes", but the reality is vastly different.

The reason NOBODY is making any serious attempt to create a rival SecondLife style product, to compete with SecondLife is because virtually ALL the potential demand for a SecondLife style product is currently being met by... SecondLife...

The infrastructure costs in setting up a serious contender are such that there's basically bugger all chance of making enough of a return on your investment, fast enough to appease your Merchant Bankers, let alone make any damn profit for your self.

As for "taking the community here" to some NEW system... LL has spent FOUR years trying to port the SL userbase to Project Stupid, in Glorious Vomit Cam, and with bugger all success. Philip Not-A-Linden has spent a similar time period trying to drag us all to Low Fidelity (a system he originally had to 'crowd fund' because initially, the Bankers would not fund it because of the lack of potential return on their investment in a realistic time frame).

What you are basically asking is why Billy-Bob Nomates, a trainee car mechanic from Des Moines, doesn't open a huge factory and produce an innovative range of new cars in numbers large enough to put Ford & GM out of business...
 

Ah I understand now! Thank you. I can't wait to see this VR jump.

[Lux Voxel]

Nothing free is ever good, said someone once.

[Klytyna]

On 11 December 2017 at 7:55 AM, Haggerty said:

I can't wait to see this VR jump.

What VR jump... The whole failure of Vomit Cam, every time it's tried is people don't want to jump to it, at least not for very long...

Back to Billy-Bob Nomates and his plan to shut down Ford & GM... By selling cars with SQUARE WHEELS!

 

[Lux Voxel]

12 hours ago, Klytyna said:

What VR jump... The whole failure of Vomit Cam, every time it's tried is people don't want to jump to it, at least not for very long...

Back to Billy-Bob Nomates and his plan to shut down Ford & GM... By selling cars with SQUARE WHEELS!

 

Virtual Reality will take over eventually. I know it may be five years from now but it is still coming up.

Was the square wheels comment a diss on Canadians?

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, Haggerty said:

Virtual Reality will take over eventually. I know it may be five years from now but it is still coming up.

I would bet large sums of money that it will be much, much longer than 5 yrs before VR even comes close to taking over anything.  They have to deal with the puke factor first and foremost.

[Callum Meriman]

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

 They have to deal with the puke factor first and foremost.

That is going to be a hard one. It really is. Even tricks like displaying a vignette during movement as we see in Fall Out 4 VR don't really help for use past a few hours. Millions of years of evolution went into our ears and balance system.

 

Long term, I think AR will be far more important than VR. AR certainly doesn't lead to vomiting. An AR virtual world would be amazing too, seeing someone's avatar appear in the real world with you, and your avatar in theirs would be quite appealling.

 

Edited December 13, 2017 by Callum Meriman

[iamyourneighbour]

I am the same age I own two houses IRL started with $2 /hr peeling potatoes when I was 16. I hold no education above year 12. 

I think you are better off joining forces with someone else. And try to get tax deduction on it if you do, use a trust structure with your family and reduce their tax and get them to pay you a cut on the amount saved 

US tax laws have always been the most user friendly in the world, the times people maximize their tax benefits is quite underwhelming. What is deductible in the US often is not deductible in Australia. If the same laws apply I would probably have retired. 

Edited January 2, 2018 by iamyourneighbour

[iamyourneighbour]

 Also look into small scale ownership first. My SL city started as a mere 512 sqm which extended to half sim size over the course of a few months. Sub your alts to premium and make them donate tiers to group , it will average to just 45 cents per 512 sqm per month.

When you want to do something always research into how people with worse starting condition got where they are, usually it involves more than just being lucky. I was pretty gobsmacked when I first found out the premium loop trick.

Edited January 2, 2018 by iamyourneighbour

[LuisWolfe]

On 1/2/2018 at 12:40 AM, iamyourneighbour said:

 Also look into small scale ownership first. My SL city started as a mere 512 sqm which extended to half sim size over the course of a few months. Sub your alts to premium and make them donate tiers to group , it will average to just 45 cents per 512 sqm per month.

When you want to do something always research into how people with worse starting condition got where they are, usually it involves more than just being lucky. I was pretty gobsmacked when I first found out the premium loop trick.

I can agree with this. Started on 512 as the base of my place, basically living my second life out of a shipping container. I luckily got a job and was able to get an 1/8th of a sim and am working tords a full sim here shortly. And its been 7 years. You got to think of advancing in SL much as RL, without much of the RL limitations. Its not going to be an easy climb and your going to be stepping on a lot of tacks, sharp rocks, and legos to get there, but you will get there. You just got to find a motive and possible a few friends with like motives and take a stab at it.

[FailedScience]

Speaking as a person who buys and sells land on secondlife for years. The problem is the "land barons" want real prices for land, if we we're to control how much u can sell a plot for it would limit it, say making categorys with set price limits and ranges, on the TG this is how we kept the market flowing. Atleast until 2008 when all us land barons left the grid

[iamyourneighbour]

Who da necro???

[Sam16 Clarity]

I for one agree with those who are saying that the land prices in SL are ridiculously high.  Other grids cost way less and they are not as bad as people are saying.  People are definitely moving out of Second life.  I use to come online and see the numbers of online players and it was over 350,000 on a regular evening.  On weekends it was over 500,000 easily.  Now I come on and I barely see 20,000 people on during the weekends.  Wake up SL.  Giving a few more prim and a little more land to premium users is not going to keep us here.  Try reducing the cost of land to $150 and the transfer fees to $0 like the rest of the grids and less of us will leave and more will come back.  When you can purchase a full grid for $75 a month from somewhere comparable to SL, you will do it.  Linden labs losing money?  shocker!!!  Try thinking about it.  This is your 15th birthday.  Greed is not healthy, nor will it keep you in the lifestyle of which you have become accustom to.  Time to make some MAJOR changes, not just throw us a bone after we have already eaten.

[LittleMe Jewell]

27 minutes ago, Sam16 Clarity said:

 I use to come online and see the numbers of online players and it was over 350,000 on a regular evening.  On weekends it was over 500,000 easily. 

SL absolutely NEVER had that many people online at one time.  I'm not sure it ever broke 100,000 concurrent users and if it did, it wasn't by much.

 

The recent changes on Premium tier allotment and tier fee reductions, combined with the increase in prims per 512 a while back, are all actually very good changes that many of us like and will take advantage of.

 

27 minutes ago, Sam16 Clarity said:

  Other grids cost way less and they are not as bad as people are saying.  People are definitely moving out of Second life. 

....

  When you can purchase a full grid for $75 a month from somewhere comparable to SL, you will do it. 

So..... why are you still here?  

Can I have your stuff?

Edited March 17, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[Alwin Alcott]

27 minutes ago, Sam16 Clarity said:

 it was over 350,000 on a regular evening. 

On weekends it was over 500,000 easily. 

what did you drink or sniff?

[iamyourneighbour]

Annnd there increased:

 

[Lux Voxel]

Can someone tell me Lindens reasoning behind really wanting to give away mainland?

I assume its on a set of massive servers that doesn't cost much to run. They want bang for their buck on this.

The premium scheme is a monthly thing but even that would not raise a lot of money for them.

Why don't they focus on private regions and the development of new private "friends only" sims.

Some sort of growth factor I am missing here or not able to see?