$99 problems

[Debs Whimsy]

8 hours ago, Fritigern Gothly said:

Selective reading much?

 

If you read underneath that, they clearly state:  * Quarterly plans may be renewed, but are no longer available for new Premium Memberships

[Peach Treat]

I'll be canceling the subscription prior to the price hike. Personally, I don't see any added value from the increased cost. Therefore I'll be downgrading June 23rd. 

[BlueJolles]

so many different opinion... but i wish was a way to send a voices to linden Lab and fix this... see like we all going to be affect one way of another 😪🙂

[BlueJolles]

i probably will be canceling and be homeless i just pay to get one the new homes but they sold out 

[Peach Treat]

Just now, BlueJolles said:

i probably will be canceling and be homeless i just pay to get one the new homes but they sold out 

You can just pay for the land itself which will be substantially cheaper than the cost of the new Premium rate. 

[Titheling Atheria]

The price hike PLUS the sudden processing fee doubling is what really has me irritated. There is very very little good int his announcement - a 20 dollar discount on an extremely expensive purchase - it's laughable how menial the discount is, hilariously so. Not at all going to push anyone who wasn't already planning on buying or already a sim owner into buying land. Basically feels pointless. The tiny increase to groups and IM's....well for 27 dollars more it's basically nothing and you're completely trampling on basic users to make it seem like it's slightly more than nothing. 

Basically this all just feels like a bad joke. It's understandable that things increase, that fees increase, but other stuff like group numbers or IM caps don't have a required cap on them that you have to shove in there to put a monetary value on. You had to decrease the basic numbers to make the premium membership seem like it had value as you hiked it. Ontop of that, ti feels incredibly tactless to do this at the same time as a processing fee increase while also giving nothing in return and acting like there's basically any good to this announcement. 

Something really needs to be done because everywhere I look ingame, out of game it's just people talking about what a mess this is....I see very few happy people. Even sim owners I know really could care less given how trivial the fees are. Great anniversary gift. 

[BelindaN]

8 hours ago, Selene Gregoire said:

You know, it would not surprise me if LL were to do away with basic accounts altogether. If they ever do go that far, they may as well close the doors to Linden Research because there is no way they can stay viable on Sansar income alone. They really are shooting themselves in the foot.

Well, Photobucket went on a similar policy of self destruct, thinking that introducing a high charge would be accepted by its users, and that didn't end well.

[Evangeline Arcadia]

8 minutes ago, Milesian said:

...everywhere I look ingame, out of game it's just people talking about what a mess this is....I see very few happy people.

Yeah, many posts here with folks not happy.  Thing is when people are unhappy you are more likely to hear those voices than those that are happy. There was bound to be some upset with the price rise, and that sentiment voiced in the forum. It's well known that you'll hear a complaint more than a compliment.  I doubt many will bother to post saying 'yay great LL, I don't mind'. So it's possible that it's just a minority vocalising here, and the majority will just accept it and pay.  I'm not happy paying more either:( I understand the complaints, but I recognise a premium rise was bound to happen sometime, just like the cost of most things in life.

I do however think it would have been better to implement a much smaller increase over the past few years than a bigger one this year. I dare say we'll all get over it at some point (self included), and either suck it up or cancel the premium account. Let's hope it's not too much of the latter cos that won't help SL.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Evangeline Arcadia

[Selene Gregoire]

1 minute ago, BelindaN said:

Well, Photobucket went on a similar policy of self destruct, thinking that introducing a high charge would be accepted by its users, and that didn't end well.

I was one of the ones who dumped Photobucket when they went full pay. I wouldn't have minded a small hosting fee but they went more than the whole hog. I was using it to host some of the images I was using on the FS forum before I discovered that particular forum provider didn't limit that sort of thing, just in the nick of time.

[Cackle Amore]

50 minutes ago, Wendy Macpherson said:

Folks apparently don't remember back in the bad old days of SL, when group numbers were limited to 25

Actually, 25 was a increase. Was around 15 at one point, I can't recall if it was lower than that.

Groups used to only have two roles as well, Admin, and Members, they've come a long way since.

 

One thing for sure, this is has certainly be one of the least favored updates in awhile, Only one good news, that largely only matters to land baron sorts at this point and the few people willing to invest in the upkeep, 20 bucks less or not. For the vast majority, the only thing this change brings is a reduction in group slots, and no other benefit.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Digit Gears

[Titheling Atheria]

5 minutes ago, Evangeline Arcadia said:

Yeah, many posts here with folks not happy.  Thing is when people are unhappy you are more likely to hear those voices than those that are. There was bound to be some upset with the price rise, and that sentiment voiced in the forum. It's well known that you'll hear a complaint more than a compliment.  I doubt many will bother to post saying 'yay great LL, I don't mind'. I'm not happy paying more either:( I understand the complaints, but a premium rise was bound to happen sometime, just like the cost of most things in life.

I do however think it would have been better to implement a much smaller increase over the past few years than a bigger one this year. I dare say we'll all get over it at some point (self included), and either suck it up or cancel the premium account. Let's hope it's not too much of the latter cos that won't help SL.

"Some upset with the price raise" That's a bit of an understatement I think.And most of my issue has to do with processing fees as a creator ontop as well as the fact that essentially ontop of paying more I am getting nothing more and they are taking things away from people to make it seem like I'm paying more. Like I said as well, the premium raise isn't something I think is unreasonable. The fact that they straight up took things away form people to make it seem like there was value in premium is.....

We also just got a processing fee increase.....Like I said there was nothing 'given' and the problem here isn't the price hike of premium it's the fact that there's some strange veil of 'gift for anniversary'. 

Edited May 30, 2019 by Milesian
quote added

[ErikMouse Dawid]

Just now, BelindaN said:

Well, Photobucket went on a similar policy of self destruct, thinking that introducing a high charge would be accepted by its users, and that didn't end well.

And someone here thinks Linden Labs would go on a similar policy of Second Life Self Destruct to try to get you to reconsider continuing your business on an OS or Halcyon based grid out there.

[Desudesudesuka]

Hey, someone could be happy about this change, the land barons.

The 99.999% of us who aren't going to save twenties to bucketload of dollars per month? HA. We're the ones paying for that "TOTALLY IMPROVED GUYS :D!" news header though.

[Selene Gregoire]

14 minutes ago, Digit Gears said:

Was around 15 at one point, I can't recall if it was lower than that.

It was 10 when I joined in 2004 and didn't increase for several years. I don't remember off hand what year it was but I want to say it was around 2007/8/9 when they upped it. It may have been as early as 2006 but I doubt it.

[Coffee Pancake]

14 minutes ago, ErikMouse Dawid said:

And someone here thinks Linden Labs would go on a similar policy of Second Life Self Destruct to try to get you to reconsider continuing your business on an OS or Halcyon based grid out there.

Opensim is not a thing. It has never been a thing. None of the grids have ever managed to hold even the hint of a candle to SL's concurrency numbers.

[Maitimo]

Well this settles my debate on whether to put my alt back on premium - its no longer worth it.  But keeping my own is still within my budget. Yes it's a 37% hike all at once but I've been in SL for 12 years and I don't remember the Premium fees ever increasing, it's been $72 a year since for ever, so averaged out over 12 years or more, it's not so much.

These changes hurt everyone except land barons and I suspect the lowering of region prices is to combat the expected exodus of users out of estate rental and into Linden Homes.

On the upside, there will be a lot of new Linden Homes available by the end of the month as swathes of Premiums downgrade to Basic. 

[Selene Gregoire]

1 minute ago, Matty Luminos said:

Well this settles my debate on whether to put my alt back on premium - its no longer worth it.  But keeping my own is still within my budget. Yes it's a 37% hike all at once but I've been in SL for 12 years and I don't remember the Premium fees ever increasing, it's been $72 a year since for ever, so averaged out over 12 years or more, it's not so much.

These changes hurt everyone except land barons and I suspect the lowering of region prices is to combat the expected exodus of users out of estate rental and into Linden Homes.

On the upside, there will be a lot of new Linden Homes available by the end of the month as swathes of Premiums downgrade to Basic. 

lol Matty. Leave it to you to find a silver lining in all this mess. 

[Evangeline Arcadia]

2 minutes ago, Matty Luminos said:

Well this settles my debate on whether to put my alt back on premium - its no longer worth it.  But keeping my own is still within my budget.

I wonder how many others will be doing the same? LL could lose some money here..

[Kadah Coba]

15 minutes ago, Digit Gears said:

Actually, 25 was a increase. Was around 15 at one point, I can't recall if it was lower than that.

Was originally 10 groups.

Nov 10, 2004 it was raised to 15. http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/32/40/26961/1.html

2006 it was raised to 25.

2011 it was pushed to 42. If I remember right, there was a technical limitation preventing it from being higher than 25 before this and Oskar or Andrew made it 42 as a reference to HHGTTG.

2015 was when the 60 bonus was added to premium.

[Nextio]

It's times like these when i wish there was an actual alternative to SL.

Opensim could have been a great alternative but content creators stayed away due to copyright issues, rightfully so in my opinion.  High Fidelity and Sansar were also good alternatives but they were built for VR and left desktop users grumbling. Sinespace could've been great but their avatar system and UI is a nightmare.

I might have to revisit Kitely again and see how their marketplace is doing.

[Richardus Raymaker]

Well, that's last year premium for me, $99 is way to high, and i tell ebbe  🙂 And the make basic worse ?!

Are the try to save secondlife or push it on the highway and wait for it's dead ?

[Desudesudesuka]

2 minutes ago, Kadah Coba said:

2011 it was pushed to 42. If I remember right, there was a technical limitation preventing it from being higher than 25 before this and Oskar or Andrew made it 42 as a reference to HHGTTG.

We've essentially lost the meaning of Second Life. Things look grim.

[ErikMouse Dawid]

1 minute ago, Nextio said:

It's times like these when i wish there was an actual alternative to SL.

Opensim could have been a great alternative but content creators stayed away due to copyright issues, rightfully so in my opinion.  High Fidelity and Sansar were also good alternatives but they were built for VR and left desktop users grumbling. Sinespace could've been great but their avatar system and UI is a nightmare.

I might have to revisit Kitely again and see how their marketplace is doing.

I haven't heard or known of any copyright issues with Opersim, even though a bunch of things being sold through the Kitely marketplace can be sent to your avatar on the OS Grid during the checkout process on there, I believe.

[Cindy Evanier]

Well have to say this was a much more interesting thread to catch up on when I woke than all the whining "I didn't get a houseboat" posts.   Carry on  

[Kadah Coba]

16 minutes ago, Matty Luminos said:

Well this settles my debate on whether to put my alt back on premium - its no longer worth it.

In all but some very iffy and narrow edge cases, its always cheaper to increase your tier than to premium up an alt. This increase only makes this slightly more true.

13 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

These changes hurt everyone except land barons and I suspect the lowering of region prices is to combat the expected exodus of users out of estate rental and into Linden Homes.

Single private region holders will see a $17.75 savings off $255/m. It is literally not much more than a token gesture, but I'll take it. This will help pay for the slight increases in mainland holding I did for frientals and I won't need to sell off any old mainland for now.