$99 problems

[Malarthi Behemoth]

Fair enough, I didn't mean to imply that it worked, only that it is not unprecedented for the Lab to try that strategy to weed out the low hanging fruit of trolls and griefs.

[Jules Catlyn]

I have seen price increases for almost any service i use in RL. It is normal that things get indexed. I am far from rich rl but i think i can manage this small price raise. it wont deter me from staying a premium member and i just chalk it up to how economics work. I am not jumping of joy but its just a fact of life. Things get more expensive over the years.

[steeljane42]

2 hours ago, ananoelle said:

I wouldnt be against a pay to play platform. It would weed out the riff raff. 

P2P model is pretty unviable for quite a while by now. See mmorpgs for example, there's like a couple of big ones left and that's about it, the rest went B2P or F2P with their versions of "premium" subscription and it was the only way they even survived for as long as they did. Back in the days pretty much every single one was P2P, but times change... now we live in times when F2P junk like candy crush makes more money than all Blizzard's games combined (stats/numbers are from last quaterly Activision Blizzard report).

And yes, I also pay for PSPlus (and used to pay sub for a few mmorpgs before) and considering that online play was free on PS2/PS3 and is completely free on PC (steam, origins, epic, battle.net etc ), I still think it's meh at best. At least there's an odd non garbage "free" monthly game here and there.

---

Overall.. I have mixed-negative feelings about those news.

Yay for 20$ less a month for full regions. Assuming landlords won't be too greedy and drop their prices by roughly same amount, it will make rentals a bit more affordable. Although if someone rents a small parcel, then the difference won't really be noticeable. It's pretty late here and my math can be off, but now 1/16 of full region (20k prims) should be around 15.56$ a month or 3970L$ with 255L$/1$ rate. After this change it'll be 14.31$/3650L$ a month. That's ~80L$ a week difference.

No mainland/homesteads price change this year either, which is a shame.

Doubled processing credit fee. Yikes. I guess we'll see another bump in "usual prices" for new releases. Last one was pretty obvious and it happened a bit after LL made it 2.5% and removed maximum fee cap. A good chunk of big/well known creators and brands bumped prices for their "regular items" from 200/250L$ to 250/300L$. 300/350L$ for a single color is the next step I suppose.

Premium fee increase is pretty bad no matter how look at it. No new promised tiers (yet, but another "later this year". Just like the last names are coming in 2018, right? ) for premiums.

Decreased basic groups slots/offline IMs is just plain petty. And a very obvious "slight push" towards "but there's a premium!". No other reasons for that. I'm aware about Lindens saying how groups are pretty heavy for servers and that the big amount of them on our avis can slow down things like teleport, but c'mon, it's still petty to downgrade it. Especially considering that server hardware gets better and they are slowly getting ready to move to the AWS, which should be much better than the dedicated server farm they have (and cheaper for LL to maintain).

Edited May 30, 2019 by steeljane42
typos

[Jennacasp]

so now we have to pay $3 transaction fee...to buy lindens?

[Selene Gregoire]

Holy crap! I didn't even notice they are reducing groups and offlines for basic. What utter balderdash.

And to think I wasted money I don't really have to spare to try and rebuild my SL business just so LL can nuke it from orbit before I can even get enough things made to put on the MP.

I knew I should have never logged back in but I listened to the other half's offer of a mesh body.

Do I regret it now? Hell yes.

[Jules Catlyn]

1 hour ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Well then... LL just priced premium completely out of my reach.

Apparently LL is determined to oust all us poor folk and have SL only for the people who have incomes over $50,000 US annually.

Thanks LL. It's so nice to know how much Linden Research dba Linden Lab appreciated the thousands of dollars I have (now) wasted over the past 15 years. I was going to request my original account back and go premium on it again but no, you had to go and raise the rate and make it unaffordable.

How much would they have been allowed to raise the fees over the past few years to compensate for cost? What would have been reasonable in your eyes? I don't like seeing prices go up either but if you break it down to by the month it is negligible to me. You make it sound like the difference in rates makes it so you have to drive a Mercedes to be able to afford Second Life. If i am seeing it wrong then please explain it to me. 

[EveniosReturns38]

i just think its wrong to hide the price increase and the non-premium restrictions added and the transactions fee increase to the bottom of the post and make it look like "good news everyone....full regions cost less!"

but i dont get a ton of offline ims so i guess no big deal to me.

 

Edited May 30, 2019 by EveniosReturns38

[ClariceRose]

Unfortunately, prices go up in every business. LL can't keep everyone happy, some will not be able to renew premium, some may have to put wanting to be premium off the side and some will have to cut things in their RL to be able to continue to afford premium. That is life. I get disappointed as well when our DirectTV bill goes up, grocery prices go up, etc. The way of the world. I am a first time premium member since last month and did annual subscription, I will probably lock in for next year. After that, I will cross that bridge when it comes.

 

[Heathernorton]

I have 2 premium accounts , not going to renew early. I am very interested in this part:

Even more improvements to Premium Membership are coming later this year: more new Linden Home themes and options as well as the introduction of an all-new membership level for those who want to get the absolute most out of their Second Life. Look out for updates to Events and more limit increases as well. 

Perhaps having 1 and paying a bit more may get something worthwhile and wont need 2

Time will tell. If not, I will just go to one premium, i don't need two

 

Edited May 30, 2019 by Heathernorton

[Selene Gregoire]

21 minutes ago, Jules Catlyn said:

How much would they have been allowed to raise the fees over the past few years to compensate for cost? What would have been reasonable in your eyes? I don't like seeing prices go up either but if you break it down to by the month it is negligible to me. You make it sound like the difference in rates makes it so you have to drive a Mercedes to be able to afford Second Life. If i am seeing it wrong then please explain it to me. 

Negligible to you. What is negligible for you is a once a day meal for someone else.

The highest paying job I have had in recent years was $14 an hour. Can you live on that? Barely, but not really. That is $29,120 annually BEFORE taxes. Take home pay is less then $25k . And that was a temporary position. 

Any price hike hurts. Badly. And it isn't going to get any better. Youth wins out over experience every time.

[Kia Kiyori]

It like a dying horse just starting to recover, when the owners decide to flog it all over again and expect it win a marathon.

[Selene Gregoire]

What galls me is the fact that basics are being reduced to compensate for the increases to premiums. Basics may not pay an annual fee but we do spends thousands of dollars in SL annually. Basics spend just as much in SL if not more than premiums do. 

Way to go LL. You've succeeded in pissing me off bad enough to call it quits for good this time. But I will wait until I have cooled off and LL has had a chance to reconsider this ill-advised move.

Shorting one customer to give another more is a bad business practice. You think LL is barely afloat now... just wait. 

And so much for LL being so concerned about retention. 

*sighs* Second Hell would be a more appropriate name these days.

[Adabetha Nayl]

An increase of $27 for the year-round premium is huge .... Today I will reconsider the question: what is the real benefit to me? I do not think renew it that's sure!
"processing credit transactions: 5% per transaction with a minimum fee of US $3"? really ?! So we have to pay $27 more Premium to pay more charges ??? all this to have 10 more group? no use for me..

[Toy Wiskee]

I don't mind the increase. However, I wish I could get the "new" premium home before they do that so I can feel like I got something for it. Right now I'm still in an old house because i work for a living and can't sit by and wait for the new ones to be released in little handfuls. That's the only thing that gets my goat.

I kinda feel sorry for basics though, the group is dropping by 7. That is a major kick in the teeth to people who are basic, especially if your basic and still buy Lindens to play with. I have a feeling there will be a major drop in players, premium and basic will be saying bye, bye.

[Kilolo Jenkins]

While I think that it's great that LL wants to reward premium members by increasing their group space and their offlines, I don't think that it's right to penalize non-premium members by taking away from the little bit they receive.

As a non-premium member, we usually get shut out of key events because premium members have reserved space above and beyond most sim limits.  We already have a select few groups we can join to the max and often times have to leave a group to join another.  We already have limited access to past transactions, offline messages and even support as we can only file a ticket.

Now don't get me wrong. There should definitely be differences between a premium and non-premium member.  I fully get that and accept that differences will be had.  But perhaps instead of shrinking non-premium group memberships to 42, increase premium to 84.  Offline ims...why should they have been affected if the messages are being received offline via email? 

And then on the paid side of things, how is it that after 15 years of premium increases, premium members are still only receiving 300L in weekly stipends?  The value of the linden as a currency has changed many times over throughout the years; why not the stipend?

I think it's great that changes are happening. But if it is to the detriment of the people who login on a daily basis who, paid membership or not, are contributing to the ebb and flow of not only the value of Second Life's citizenship but their commerce as well, then who does this truly benefit?

[ananoelle]

My only gripe about the fee increase is really that, I wanted to make my alt premium. Im trying hard to justify spending $NZD 300+ a year for 2 premium memberships. Ill still have at least 1 premium acc. The stipend would definitely help towards the up keep and I could just top up the rest but I just dont know. 

 

[Heathernorton]

in the past I have reacted swiftly and emotionally to these types of things. I am taking a moment to take a breath. Not all of the information is out yet and I dont want to react with raw emotion until I have a chance to digest it all. Im not leaving SL, that I can guarantee. I am here to be with people that mean alot to me. I just dont know yet what level I will be. I'll figure that out in time, But SL is so stuck with me! 

[Oz Linden]

6 minutes ago, Kilolo Jenkins said:

Offline ims...why should they have been affected if the messages are being received offline via email? 

IMs via email have never been limited, and are not affected by this change at all. If you have a verified address, we'll send the IMs you are sent as email.

The limit is only the number of messages we'll store and deliver in a batch when you log in. If you have IM to email enabled, they'll all be old news by then...

[Malin Sabra]

Seems the only ones benefiting from this are private region owners. (The 1%ers)

I could give 2 poops about extra groups myself. Can give me 10 groups and I'll live. Offline IM's can be sent to email so don't care about that either.

To me it seems like the wrong audience is targeted in this. The majority of SL people are not private region owners (right? or am I wrong?) and even the $20 off the price its still way out of reach for the majority of the population to even fathom the possibility of owning one.

I think a price reduction in tier in general would have been a better thing than private regions.

I am glad they will be allowing you to re-up your premium at current prices if you do it before June 24th. So they at least have me for another year.

A HUGE portion of SL players are disabled too. So I expect there will be a few premium drop offs from them.

I think the end result of this will be a lot less premium members and maybe the people that already own sims might get a couple more.

So if you rent land out... get ready because all the people that stop paying for premium will need a place to rent soon and you can get a region to rent to them $20 cheaper!

Land Baron 1

Premium member 0

 

 

 

[animats]

37% price increase!

Wow. This is normal for San Francisco, but not for the rest of the world.

 

[Kilolo Jenkins]

1 minute ago, Oz Linden said:

IMs via email have never been limited, and are not affected by this change at all. If you have a verified address, we'll send the IMs you are sent as email.

The limit is only the number of messages we'll store and deliver in a batch when you log in. If you have IM to email enabled, they'll all be old news by then...

Thank you for responding and clearing that up, Oz. Much appreciated.

[Frankie Antonioni]

The reason that LL is increasing prices, is because they are located in California. California has high taxes, and San Francisco has high rent. LL needs to move out of California. Move to Texas, or Nevada. Texas has no state income tax, and Houston has lower rent. Nevada has no state income tax. And rent should be cheaper in Las Vegas, than in San Francisco. Taxes are only going to go up in California. The same goes for rent in San Francisco. If they own their building, then they will see higher property taxes. LL should also off shore some of their work force to other countries. I suggest India. This would be for something like the old G team, and for support.

I have been talking to some people in different groups in SL. Some are talking about going basic, or stop playing.  On this page, I see the same thing being said in SL. I'm not sure what I will do. I do think that everybody should email LL, and tell them what you think.

[ananoelle]

1 minute ago, Heathernorton said:

in the past I have reacted swiftly and emotionally to these types of things. I am taking a moment to take a breath. Not all of the information is out yet and I dont want to react with raw emotion until I have a chance to digest it all. Im not leaving SL, that I can guarantee. I am here to be with people that mean alot to me. I just dont know yet what level I will be. I'll figure that out in time, But SL is so stuck with me! 

Yep ill take some time to think things over as well .. my post was definitely a knee jerk reaction but ill wait till more is out and ive had a rum or 10. The fee is the only matter I actually care about in the whole roll out. 

Can we have a discount for 2nd premium accs? Lol 

[Selene Gregoire]

5 minutes ago, Frankie Antonioni said:

The reason that LL is increasing prices, is because they are located in California. California has high taxes, and San Francisco has high rent. LL needs to move out of California. Move to Texas, or Nevada. Texas has no state income tax, and Houston has lower rent. Nevada has no state income tax. And rent should be cheaper in Las Vegas, than in San Francisco. Taxes are only going to go up in California. The same goes for rent in San Francisco. If they own their building, then they will see higher property taxes. LL should also off shore some of their work force to other countries. I suggest India. This would be for something like the old G team, and for support.

I have been talking to some people in different groups in SL. Some are talking about going basic, or stop playing.  On this page, I see the same thing being said in SL. I'm not sure what I will do. I do think that everybody should email LL, and tell them what you think.

They wouldn't even have to move that far. Oregon does not have state income tax.

ETA: Sorry. I know better since I live in Oregon. Too much has happened today and my brain is rebelling. TBI sucks.

Outsourcing? They did that before. Didn't work out so well. And India? No thank you! for a number of reasons, one of which is I lost a decent job to outsourcing and my life has been hell ever since. I won't get into the incompetence and other things. I'm already ticked off.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Frankie Antonioni said:

LL should also off shore some of their work force to other countries

They already do.