Should There Be Disincentives for Free Accounts?

[Madison Heartsong]

4 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

you'r forgetting you pay afterwards... so you know a month before what you have to pay.

Asking for 30 days grace is absurd... you would be able to sell land where you didn't pay the taxes for yet...

also... IF you had to change your payment info, you have a full month for it before it's really taken.

You are responsible for a active payment method. period.

If you'r not able to do so, put enough funds on Paypal so you can move forward for some months.

Your suggestion has nothing to do with disincentives... it's just a resident not willing to comply to the rules and guidelines.

 

If I fell behind due to such a thing as identity theft (or even if I got a bigger tier than I could financially handle every month, though that would at least mean I'd made a dumb decision to bite off more tier than I could chew; I'm on a small tier and I know that won't happen short of a logistical problem, which would definitely have happened had I had the account when I had my bank account/card numbers stolen) then why should they take from me things I'd have had I never paid them anything?

I could log in to a basic account, never paying a tier fee, and always could log in.   If I missed my rent in real life, there might be some strict law somewhere that could let them take my access to my apartment the same day, and if it were no more important than a sl dwelling, there would be fewer tenant protections so there'd be many places that one day late would allow them to deny my access to my apartment.

And I say, fine if I had a logistical nightmare and missed a tier payment:  Make me essentially banned from my own land.  But no one should ever be barred from sl itself (or forced to log in an alt but not one's "real" account) due to missing one month of tier fees-- because that can happen to anyone, and losing access to what you pay for is enough to give you a reason to pay for it.  But I should still be able to log in and play the game, even if I'm treated by the system as not even being premium at all.  I wouldn't have paid anything for that month, so I should then only get what LL gives others who pay nothing.  But that I should get.  And I should get time (I was saying 10 days, but it appears to be 30 days-- and that's better) to get things in order with no permanent damage.

If I could set up the rules, missing fees wouldn't ever cause someone to be disallowed login.  You should lose what the fees pay for.  Maybe if it's a huge debt and they have no other way of collecting, that might be leverage.  I accept that it'll be used as leverage if I didn't clear it up within 30 days, and could accept it if it were 10 days.  In my case, beyond the regular membership fee, my tier is under $10/month, so I'm comfortable that unless I lost access to the very sources I use for online payment (though that happened once, so I'm wary of that) I'd always be able to pay it off. ,,,and I'd regain a source within 10 days, also. But I could miss the fee at a specific time, and others who had easily affordable (to them-- to some people though not me, $50/month is easily affordable; to others even my tier might be a problem) circumstances could cause it to be missed at a given time.

I think after reading that the policy is that permanent damage, or loss of privileges that one can have for free, only occurs if you're over 30 days overdue, and assuming warnings occur so someone doesn't change real life cards and not realize they aren't paying, that's perfectly reasonable.  I'm not thrilled with the idea that someone could lose privileges they could get for free by failing to pay for others, but I'll accept that LL may see that as the only leverage they have for collection, if someone no longer cares about their land but might about their account.  But for anything huge to happen when one day late, you really don't see that anywhere.   And it should at the least not be taken lightly to take away something other than what was not paid for.  It would be like turning off my power if I failed to pay the cable bill.

[Tari Landar]

23 minutes ago, Madison531 said:

 

If I fell behind due to such a thing as identity theft (or even if I got a bigger tier than I could financially handle every month, though that would at least mean I'd made a dumb decision to bite off more tier than I could chew; I'm on a small tier and I know that won't happen short of a logistical problem, which would definitely have happened had I had the account when I had my bank account/card numbers stolen) then why should they take from me things I'd have had I never paid them anything?

I could log in to a basic account, never paying a tier fee, and always could log in.   If I missed my rent in real life, there might be some strict law somewhere that could let them take my access to my apartment the same day, and if it were no more important than a sl dwelling, there would be fewer tenant protections so there'd be many places that one day late would allow them to deny my access to my apartment.

And I say, fine if I had a logistical nightmare and missed a tier payment:  Make me essentially banned from my own land.  But no one should ever be barred from sl itself (or forced to log in an alt but not one's "real" account) due to missing one month of tier fees-- because that can happen to anyone, and losing access to what you pay for is enough to give you a reason to pay for it.  But I should still be able to log in and play the game, even if I'm treated by the system as not even being premium at all.  I wouldn't have paid anything for that month, so I should then only get what LL gives others who pay nothing.  But that I should get.  And I should get time (I was saying 10 days, but it appears to be 30 days-- and that's better) to get things in order with no permanent damage.

If I could set up the rules, missing fees wouldn't ever cause someone to be disallowed login.  You should lose what the fees pay for.  Maybe if it's a huge debt and they have no other way of collecting, that might be leverage.  I accept that it'll be used as leverage if I didn't clear it up within 30 days, and could accept it if it were 10 days.  In my case, beyond the regular membership fee, my tier is under $10/month, so I'm comfortable that unless I lost access to the very sources I use for online payment (though that happened once, so I'm wary of that) I'd always be able to pay it off. ,,,and I'd regain a source within 10 days, also. But I could miss the fee at a specific time, and others who had easily affordable (to them-- to some people though not me, $50/month is easily affordable; to others even my tier might be a problem) circumstances could cause it to be missed at a given time.

I think after reading that the policy is that permanent damage, or loss of privileges that one can have for free, only occurs if you're over 30 days overdue, and assuming warnings occur so someone doesn't change real life cards and not realize they aren't paying, that's perfectly reasonable.  I'm not thrilled with the idea that someone could lose privileges they could get for free by failing to pay for others, but I'll accept that LL may see that as the only leverage they have for collection, if someone no longer cares about their land but might about their account.  But for anything huge to happen when one day late, you really don't see that anywhere.   And it should at the least not be taken lightly to take away something other than what was not paid for.  It would be like turning off my power if I failed to pay the cable bill.

You seem to be under the impression that Linden Lab somehow *owes* us access to their services. They most definitely do not owe us the ability to log in and use their services. If you owe LL money, and you fail to pay it, they have every right to disallow you access to their services, including those that folks who are not premium accounts get. Why do you think LL should owe you continued access to their servers, their services at all, but, even more so, when you owe them money? Why do you think people are somehow entitled to have access to sl? LL doesn't *have to let any of us in, premium or not. 

You're making a mountain out of a molehill here, lol. If you want to pay for premium and/or tier, then do so responsibly, just like you'd do with any other bill. When you don't, can't, whatever, whether of your control or not, expect that there will be consequences. It's not that difficult of a concept, lol. 

[Solar Legion]

Premium account here and have been for ... Gads I think since 2011/2012?

Certainly wasn't Premium for the first 5 or 6 years in Second Life though - joined near the end of 2006.

Anyway I honestly didn't go Premium over the Stipend (which goes by your Second Life Join date to determine which Stipend level you get, not your Premium sign up date) nor over any of the supposed perks. Oh no, I did so to have a tiny space I could use as a Home that would be there for as long as Second Life remains up and later to use as a semi-private getaway in addition to the place I'm renting from one of the much larger Estates.

I end up dumping about $44.50 in each month as a baseline and yes that includes the $9.50 monthly charge for Premium in there ($35 flat without said charge) and if I can I sometimes spend a bit more. Yes, a good chunk of that goes to parcel rental but still ...

I find it somewhat amusing that every so often topics similar to this crop up where someone comes along fishing for/presenting "ideas" to either make Premium more appealing or to somehow restrict Free accounts in some way - some even going so far as to suggest a one-time fee!

That later "idea" seems to be quite popular among those lacking an understanding of what constitutes a Free account and the impact they have had on Second Life since the introduction of them in 2006. Prior to that you actually did have to pay a fee for the Basic level of account and - whether or not some older account holders like to admit it - turned a great many people away from Second Life.

There are many reasons Free accounts outnumber Premium types and quite frankly the time to place any meaningful restrictions of any kind on Free accounts passed quite a long time ago, despite what some users wish to believe. Any restrictions of any kind placed now will cause more users to simply up and leave rather than sign up for a Premium.

Yes, any restrictions: Inventory, land rental, trial periods, tying some newer building or other generalized features to account level - the list goes on and on.

Users have bantered back and forth over how to make Premium more appealing to people and some have even gone the route this thread's author took and tried to banter over how to make Free accounts less appealing (though the original poster here did so for rather selfish reasons quite specific to their own problems) and funnily enough the same "ideas" get trotted out time and time again only to be shot down by other users time and time again.

Count me as very thankful that no one at Linden Lab was foolish enough to implement those ideas.

In any event: Going Premium or not is a personal choice as is staying Premium. Funny part of all of this? There's one account type I'd have paid for if it were still being offered by Linden Lab; Lifetime.

At the original cost (about $160) I could have budgeted that as a one time Entertainment Expense (I have spent about as much on other Entertainment items and far more buying L$ through the years, to say nothing of the Rental plot I have had for some time now), plunked that down and just moved forward. Unfortunately this account level was only offered until the end of the year that Second Life came out of Beta, before the introduction of Land Tier.

At the price it was at before being discontinued ($225) I would have had to save for a month at least before buying it but I'd have still gladly bought it.

I'd best cut this here as I am now almost rambling ...

Edited December 28, 2017 by Solar Legion
Added a tiny bit of information

[Madison Heartsong]

5 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

You seem to be under the impression that Linden Lab somehow *owes* us access to their services. They most definitely do not owe us the ability to log in and use their services. If you owe LL money, and you fail to pay it, they have every right to disallow you access to their services, including those that folks who are not premium accounts get. Why do you think LL should owe you continued access to their servers, their services at all, but, even more so, when you owe them money? Why do you think people are somehow entitled to have access to sl? LL doesn't *have to let any of us in, premium or not. 

What bothers me here is that you're arguing that LL has zero responsibility to us.  "Why do you think LL should owe you continued access...at all...?"  Meaning that you're saying that I could comply with the TOS, have a paid up premium account, and they would have the moral right to decide "I don't like her" and deny me access?

That would be unethical and also awful business.

Ethically, they would have gotten me to spend money (most important to them) but also time and effort, much of which was fun or I wouldn't do it, but if suddenly cut off would feel wasted, and then cut me off for no decent reason.  They own the servers.   But there's an implied promise once they take money that there will be a very good reason if I'm denied access.

And of course that's also bad for  business.  If people who did nothing wrong (forget about owing money; what you're saying is they have the right to deny customers access to their servers regardless, which is probably legally true but unethical if for no strong reason)...if they started doing that more than very rarely, people would leave in droves.  It takes some serious actions to lose an account; and if it didn't, people wouldn't trust LL with their money, or even effort.

5 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

You're making a mountain out of a molehill here, lol. If you want to pay for premium and/or tier, then do so responsibly, just like you'd do with any other bill. When you don't, can't, whatever, whether of your control or not, expect that there will be consequences. It's not that difficult of a concept, lol.

The mountain out of a molehill, well, I didn't intend this to be a big topic of discussion, but I got very bothered by the harshness of the responses to a small comment I made, when my basic post was in favor of a one time $5 fee to confirm a non-premium account, to give people a quick way to figure an account is probably not a throwaway.

Then the lockout came up,  and the reactions made no sense to me, as if people forget that behind whatever account is a person, and in most cases they probably did not intend not to pay, but might be denied access to something that-- it varies by the person, but could be extremely important to them.  And so the discussion went.

 

[Tari Landar]

2 minutes ago, Madison531 said:

What bothers me here is that you're arguing that LL has zero responsibility to us.  "Why do you think LL should owe you continued access...at all...?"  Meaning that you're saying that I could comply with the TOS, have a paid up premium account, and they would have the moral right to decide "I don't like her" and deny me access?

That would be unethical and also awful business.

Feel free to point out where I, or anyone, said that...or an instance where LL has actually done that. (I can assure you, you'll find nothing to share  ) What I said was why do you think LL should owe you continued access at all, and most especially *when you owe them money*. So, that's what I was asking. Why do you think LL owes you, me, or anyone else, access to their services? I didn't ask if it would be smart for them to allow us all access, I asked why you think they owe it to us. More importantly, why do you think LL owes someone that is delinquent in payment( owes them money) access to any of their services?  I thought it was pretty clear, but perhaps I was mistaken. 

 

3 minutes ago, Madison531 said:

Ethically, they would have gotten me to spend money (most important to them) but also time and effort, much of which was fun or I wouldn't do it, but if suddenly cut off would feel wasted, and then cut me off for no decent reason.  They own the servers.   But there's an implied promise once they take money that there will be a very good reason if I'm denied access.

And of course that's also bad for  business.  If people who did nothing wrong (forget about owing money; what you're saying is they have the right to deny customers access to their servers regardless, which is probably legally true but unethical if for no strong reason)...if they started doing that more than very rarely, people would leave in droves.  It takes some serious actions to lose an account; and if it didn't, people wouldn't trust LL with their money, or even effort.

Your idea of ethical, my idea of ethical, others' idea of ethical, even LL's idea of ethical, is likely going to vary-there really is no way to meet in the middle on that when opinions vary so greatly. I don't consider them denying access to *services*(yes, all of them) to folks who owe them money, to be unethical, in the least. You seem to think otherwise, at least, your posts read as such. You think they should not deny access to services, just the *land, well, your posts say this anyway. I disagree with that assessment, entirely. I think they have every right to deny all access if someone owes them money. I don't think it's unethical, or a bad business move. I think it's a lot more common than you might believe too, from countless different types of businesses, online, and rl. I'm not going to forget owing money, because that's what this was all about...people being denied access when they are delinquent on payment. At least, that's where this part of the discussion started anyway, lol. 

Yes LL can deny access to THEIR services, for whatever reason they so choose, within the law, just as any other business can. Would it be smart of them to always, or even ever, choose to disallow access willy nilly? Probably not, but they have that capability, they have that "right"(I use that term rather loosely, because there aren't a whole lot of rights that govern access to services, but it's the closest word to describe what I'm talking about). They never have denied access "just because", it is *always* for good reason, though, so it's rather moot to debate about it. 

I could go into a long tirade about why business owners are allowed to deny business/access to whomever they wish under whatever laws govern their country/area, and should remain so, but I doubt anyone wants to read it. Suffice it to say that I have had to make decisions like that in rl, granted it has not been that often, thankfully, but it has happened.  It's not unethical, and it's sure as hell not immoral..it's merely me sticking to MY standards and business practices that I personally find to be ideal.  

[Callum Meriman]

2 hours ago, Madison531 said:

(I'm) in favor of a one time $5 fee to confirm a non-premium account, to give people a quick way to figure an account is probably not a throwaway.

This can be done now. Payment info on file.

Add your credit card, buy US$2.00 of Lindens, and you are PIOF.

Edited December 28, 2017 by Callum Meriman

[bigmoe Whitfield]

2 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

This can be done now. Payment info on file.

Add your credit card, buy US$2.00 of Lindens, and you are PIOF.

 

I'm not paying a setup fee after almost 11 years on the grid.  some of us that have invested heavily in sim rentals, parcels, marketplace, in world locations.  should be grandfathered in.  dont bite the hand  that feed's you.

[Callum Meriman]

5 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

 

I'm not paying a setup fee after almost 11 years on the grid

You are PIOF already, so I don't know what you are attacking my post for?

Edited December 28, 2017 by Callum Meriman

[bigmoe Whitfield]

16 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

You are PIOF already, so I don't know what you are attacking my post for?

Not attacking, but it's simple. drop the idea of them trying to do something of this nature, that idea came and gone years ago. 

Edited December 29, 2017 by bigmoe Whitfield

[Madison Heartsong]

...

Edited December 29, 2017 by Madison531
Would have deleted, time for the argument to end and I should have just let it die, but I can't delete, so I'm deleting the content.

[Solar Legion]

Oh for the ...

You can argue ethics/morality until you are blue in the face but at the end of the day there are only two factors that prevent Linden Lab from banning a user without a "proper" reason: Money and Reputation.

Linden Lab has managed to weather hits to their Reputation thus far, some very much deserved (a small handful of policy decisions) and some that are frankly questionable (the Bragg case, Open Spaces and a few others) aided by the fact that they are still the only real provider of this type of VW around (BM fell on its face, HF and Sansar aren't really off the ground yet and Open Sim based 'worlds' are a joke) so it would stand to reason that their Reputation is a distinct secondary concern between the two.

That leaves Money: Premium Account fees, Land Tier fees, Private Island (and similar) startup and Maintenance fees among other things. Between all of their income sources they net enough to allow users to have accounts without charging them a fee of any sort to simply have their account exist. However if they actually started acting on their ability to ban for any reason they may well see their revenue dry up quite quickly so ... 

They play nice because they have to, same as most businesses. The difference was - at one point - that some of their employees were pulled from the ranks of their users and thus some understood where the general user base is coming from.

Not so much any more.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

I have always found it funny that some people think Premium account fees make up some sort of huge amount of money for LL. With the free land, L$ incentive and free gifts, it''s pretty much a wash on cost. What you pay for Premium is given back by LL in those things. LL main income is land tier, followed by upload fees then the MP cut.. IMO anyway. But it is a logical deduction. I mean, a single house can cost a few hundred L$ to upload the mesh for, then several textures for it.. 

LL wont impart any penalties for non-premium members. They would lose a huge paycheck. You really think all of that land is rented by premium members from the land barons? Premium members can rent from LL directly. 

[Qie Niangao]

31 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

I have always found it funny that some people think Premium account fees make up some sort of huge amount of money for LL. With the free land, L$ incentive and free gifts, it''s pretty much a wash on cost. [...]

I used to think that, too, but it kinda depends on how you look at those stipends. This isn't to diminish the overwhelming importance of land tier to LL's income -- it's really the only thing that keeps the ship afloat -- but they do make some income monetizing the L$, and that's mostly done by selling Premium subscriptions that give those weekly stipends.

(In contrast, I doubt they sell all that many freshly-minted L$s on the LindeX, and the vast, vast majority of trades are resident-to-resident.)

But yeah, its certainly open to "interpretive accounting" whether that L$ monetization should be accrued at its source (Premium subscriptions) or rather attributed to the many and diverse sinks that generate L$ demand exceeding the supply in circulation.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

11 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I used to think that, too, but it kinda depends on how you look at those stipends. This isn't to diminish the overwhelming importance of land tier to LL's income -- it's really the only thing that keeps the ship afloat -- but they do make some income monetizing the L$, and that's mostly done by selling Premium subscriptions that give those weekly stipends.

(In contrast, I doubt they sell all that many freshly-minted L$s on the LindeX, and the vast, vast majority of trades are resident-to-resident.)

But yeah, its certainly open to "interpretive accounting" whether that L$ monetization should be accrued at its source (Premium subscriptions) or rather attributed to the many and diverse sinks that generate L$ demand exceeding the supply in circulation.

Lets break it down... totaling costs for a year

$72 USD a yearly membership

-$60 USD a year for the free 512. 

-$14.52 USD a year for the 300L$ weekly stipend.

= -$2.52USd... LL loses money on yearly premium memberships. 

$90 USD quarterly membership

- $74.52 In benefits 

= $15.48 bonus to LL

$114 USD monthly membership

- $74.52 in benefits 

$39.48 bonus to LL

So, the monthly membership is the most cost effective for LL. The yearly is actually a loss for them. 

 

[Alwin Alcott]

27 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

Lets break it down... totaling costs for a year

$72 USD a yearly membership

-$60 USD a year for the free 512. 

-$14.52 USD a year for the 300L$ weekly stipend.

= -$2.52USd... LL loses money on yearly premium memberships.

i t won't add tons of loss to LL, but there are still premiums with 400 or 500 stipend... and some old basics also with their log in bonus.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

3 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

i t won't add tons of loss to LL, but there are still premiums with 400 or 500 stipend... and some old basics also with their log in bonus.

I was just using current numbers.. But those will still count

LL really only makes serious money on land tier, smaller money on uploads, MP cuts and now on the $.99 transaction fee. 

[Magnek Fang]

Don't forget that there are people whose hackles raise at the thought of any subscription fee. Pokemon Bank charges 5 bucks a YEAR, and there are people still complaining about it. Also, what about the folk going on multi-year hiatuses for whatever reason?

[Qie Niangao]

3 hours ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

The yearly is actually a loss for them. 

Well, a "loss" in the sense that they aren't making as much as they would otherwise. It's all revenue, and in particular minting new L$s costs the Lab as near to nothing as makes no difference. That's in contrast to hosting sims, which costs something at least, and would keep costing something no matter how many folks offset some of that cost with Premium subscriptions, assuming they don't shut down the Mainland sims altogether.

[Rhonda Huntress]

3 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

It's all revenue, and in particular minting new L$s costs the Lab as near to nothing as makes no difference. That's in contrast to hosting sims, which costs something at least, and would keep costing something no matter how many folks offset some of that cost with Premium subscriptions,

How many sims are there all together?

(*google foo goes here*)

Just under 24K sims.  Adjust for homestead .... 16K "full sim equivalent."  Divide by 8 cores per server gives us 2000 physical servers.  Each server lasts approx 5 years if you stretch it out ...  so all in all there are about 1.6 physical servers being replaced every working day not including break/fix.

[Love Zhaoying]

26 minutes ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

Each server lasts approx 5 years if you stretch it out ...  so all in all there are about 1.6 physical servers being replaced every working day not including break/fix.

Once it's all nice and cloudy, won't the "replacement cost" be absorbed by Amazon or the other hosting companies (and be built into tier/prices charged to LL)?

[Love Zhaoying]

4 hours ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

= -$2.52USd... LL loses money on yearly premium memberships. 

Those of us who pay $195 (mainlaind) or $295 (private sim) tier fees more than make up for our cheapo rates. And why would a user pay "premium" if they weren't also going to pay tier?

[Phil Deakins]

5 hours ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

Lets break it down... totaling costs for a year

$72 USD a yearly membership

-$60 USD a year for the free 512. 

-$14.52 USD a year for the 300L$ weekly stipend.

= -$2.52USd... LL loses money on yearly premium memberships. 

L$300 per week = 52 * 300 = L$15,600 per year

When changed into US$ at the current exchange rate = ~US$62.40.

You did the sums for a monthly 300L$ stipend, even though you wrote weekly

I challenge your inclusion of -US$60 a year for the free 512. That shouldn't be there at all, imo. If you do include it, then LL would lose US$50.40 a year on a $72 annual premium membership ($60 (512) + $62.40 (stipend) - $72), and not merely $2.52 that you said.

 

Edited December 29, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Klytyna]

7 hours ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

Lets break it down... totaling costs for a year

$72 USD a yearly membership

-$60 USD a year for the free 512.

-$14.52 USD a year for the 300L$ weekly stipend.

= -$2.52USd... LL loses money on yearly premium memberships.

You seem to have it ass backwards...

$72 a year for the membership...

$60 worth of LS a year

$12 a year for your 'Free' 512, which works out at a per sim rate of $128 a month, less than standard tier for Madlands and a lot less than standard tier for islands, a LOW LOW SUBSIDISED rate.

$0 a year for paying LL call center staff to wade through craptons of "entitlement AR & support tickets & Live Chat whining"

= Net Loss per 'member' for LL of an undisclosed sum. 

It's part of a "retention strategy" thats based of non-SL-using executive management STILL not having a damn clue about who uses SL, what they use it for or why.
 

[Drake1 Nightfire]

4 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

L$300 per week = 52 * 300 = L$15,600 per year

When changed into US$ at the current exchange rate = ~US$62.40.

You did the sums for a monthly 300L$ stipend, even though you wrote weekly

I challenge your inclusion of -US$60 a year for the free 512. That shouldn't be there at all, imo. If you do include it, then LL would lose US$50.40 a year on a $72 annual premium membership ($60 (512) + $62.40 (stipend) - $72), and not merely $2.52 that you said.

 

You are correct on the L$ numbers, my bad...

Why would you not include the cost of the land they give you? It's $5 USD a month for a 512.. So, $60 USD a year..  

1 hour ago, Klytyna said:

You seem to have it ass backwards...

$72 a year for the membership...

$60 worth of LS a year

$12 a year for your 'Free' 512, which works out at a per sim rate of $128 a month, less than standard tier for Madlands and a lot less than standard tier for islands, a LOW LOW SUBSIDISED rate.

$0 a year for paying LL call center staff to wade through craptons of "entitlement AR & support tickets & Live Chat whining"

= Net Loss per 'member' for LL of an undisclosed sum. 

It's part of a "retention strategy" thats based of non-SL-using executive management STILL not having a damn clue about who uses SL, what they use it for or why.
 

Your numbers are wrong on the land.. A 512 is $5 USD a month or $60 a year.. I screwed up on the L$ cost.. 

[Callum Meriman]

On 12/29/2017 at 12:28 PM, bigmoe Whitfield said:

Not attacking, but it's simple. drop the idea of them trying to do something of this nature, that idea came and gone years ago. 

In my reply to the person who said they would pay a little for a way to prove the account wasn't a throwaway - that's what I was pointing out, no? Land even has the ability to ban people who don't have this info. 

Generally though, it isn't used. It locks out good people that you want to come, because - even though there IS a way to prove your account isn't a throwaway quite a sizable chunk of decent people can't be arsed to (or just can't for RL reasons) do it.

Edited December 30, 2017 by Callum Meriman