$99 problems

[ananoelle]

2 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. 

Or move to NZ we have nice scenery lol 

[Lucia Nightfire]

Ebbe should hold an emergency town hall.

Stock up on pitch forks and torches or maybe tomatoes.

[Frankie Antonioni]

I prefer tar, and feathers.

[Selene Gregoire]

[mehllama]

LL just needs to admit that computer geeks need to hire some MBAs to run the business end because cutting free groups down to 35 when for most free users those are store groups only kills commerce. Furthermore, if they'd lower the price of sims more, more people would rent them - and rented sims make you a lot more money than un-rented sims. 

I'm all for LL making money. The more they make, the longer we'll have SL. But this is NOT how you make money. 

[Mollymews]

3 hours ago, Mahala Roviana said:

I just switched back to a premium account. It's like they saw me coming. 

me too it seems.  I got in before the hike. And I will get a opportunity to get another 12 months at my current rate. Which I will take up. So right now I am pretty ok with this

i have been thinking about getting a second premium for the tier allowance. This might tip me into doing it.  2 years worth at the old rate. I have a few days left to think about

[Ivy Mysterious]

3 hours ago, ananoelle said:

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

For someone who has NEVER had premium in the almost 9 years she's been on this platform I am heavilly against that idea. Just because I don't pay a monthly/ yearly price doesn't mean I don't contribute to LL's income, I shop on the MP a lot, which I know LL takes a percentage of, as does millions of others, premium or not.

I can understand why you would want it, it would definitely HELP in weeding out griefers, beggars and other unwanted riff raff, its not a bullet proof plan....

I mean theirs a reason they done away with the payment info age verification thing

[Malarthi Behemoth]

2 minutes ago, mehllama said:

LL just needs to admit that computer geeks need to hire some MBAs to run the business end because cutting free groups down to 35 when for most free users those are store groups only kills commerce. Furthermore, if they'd lower the price of sims more, more people would rent them - and rented sims make you a lot more money than un-rented sims. 

I'm all for LL making money. The more they make, the longer we'll have SL. But this is NOT how you make money. 

Erm, they literally just dropped $240/year off the upkeep cost of a full region if I read their little chart right. That's not a tiny thing by any means.

[Selene Gregoire]

2 minutes ago, Malarthi Behemoth said:

Erm, they literally just dropped $240/year off the upkeep cost of a full region if I read their little chart right. That's not a tiny thing by any means.

Must be nice to be able to afford $2748 USD a year for a full region once the new rates kick in. Most of us don't have that kind of cash to spare.

[mehllama]

5 minutes ago, Malarthi Behemoth said:

Erm, they literally just dropped $240/year off the upkeep cost of a full region if I read their little chart right. That's not a tiny thing by any means.

And yet, they seem to think free users are like deadbeats or something. It's very irksome. 

[Selene Gregoire]

Just now, mehllama said:

And yet, they seem to think free users are like deadbeats or something. It's very irksome. 

A "war" I've been fighting against for more than a decade. They've finally worn me down to the point where I'm about ready to say eff it all.

The one thing I won't do though? Go back to Active Worlds. lol

[Coffee Pancake]

Dropping base region rates is a false economy.

The bulk of region owners depend on rental income, so expect land rental rates to drop (especially to combat the perceived exodus to Bellisseria). Someone will be under pressure and will drop rates overnight and then everyone else will have to follow.

It's not going to do much to curb region drop off rates for those with small holdings (as in only a few regions). The mega land owners are far more insulated overall.

I would have preferred to see something that gave discounts for the second and third region to encourage growth on the low end.

[Kia Kiyori]

9 minutes ago, Malarthi Behemoth said:

Erm, they literally just dropped $240/year off the upkeep cost of a full region if I read their little chart right. That's not a tiny thing by any means.

That's simply rewarding those who have that kind of disposable income irl while punishing those who don't.

[Ivy Mysterious]

4 minutes ago, mehllama said:

And yet, they seem to think free users are like deadbeats or something. It's very irksome. 

Sadly thats how its always been viewed, online and RL. The poor are viewed as dead beats who live off the government and the rich are usually the ones imposing that view

[Coffee Pancake]

3 minutes ago, mehllama said:

And yet, they seem to think free users are like deadbeats or something. It's very irksome. 

We (all users, prem or not) are dead beats.

Region owners have been paying for SL since day one. Running SL comes with some seriously massive overhead costs, and a few bucks from prem or pennies on the dollar on marketplace fees does not pay for much of anything. Hence LL wanting to try and shift the balance of income more evenly.

[mehllama]

2 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

We (all users, prem or not) are dead beats.

Region owners have been paying for SL since day one. Running SL comes with some seriously massive overhead costs, and a few bucks from prem or pennies on the dollar on marketplace fees does not pay for much of anything. Hence LL wanting to try and shift the balance of income more evenly.

A great deal of LL's money comes from commerce within SL, which is typically undertaken by users both free and premium. Many opt to buy clothes and other such things rather than rent sims. Before my health issues kicked in, I had a Premium account plus owned a full sim and would spend close to the same amount or more a month on clothes alone. So it's a little more complicated than just "muh land rentals", and I don't think cutting into one revenue stream because another earns as much or slightly better makes any sense at all. Your net profit decreases that way - it doesn't increase.  

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, mehllama said:

A great deal of LL's money comes from commerce within SL, which is typically undertaken by users both free and premium. Many opt to buy clothes and other such things rather than rent sims. Before my health issues kicked in, I had a Premium account plus owned a full sim and would spend close to the same amount or more a month on clothes alone. So it's a little more complicated than just "muh land rentals", and I don't think cutting into one revenue stream because another earns as much or slightly better makes any sense at all. Your net profit decreases that way - it doesn't increase.  

Land and commerce is a little different.

Commerce is LL taking a tiny cut off the movement of L$ at every point they can. It's basically a low level tax.

Land fees go straight into the bank one way or another, and the amounts are significantly higher. I wouldn't be surprised if 80% of LL's income is from land.

The whole stated point of this price increase is to shift the balance of income away from complete dependence on land owners, Ebbe and co have been every open for months about this.

[mehllama]

1 minute ago, CoffeeDujour said:

Land and commerce is a little different.

Commerce is LL taking a tiny cut off the movement of L$ at every point they can. It's basically a low level tax.

Land fees go straight into the bank one way or another, and the amounts are significantly higher. I wouldn't be surprised if 80% of LL's income is from land.

The whole stated point of this price increase is to shift the balance of income away from complete dependence on land owners, Ebbe and co have been every open for months about this.

I don't see them getting there by discouraging commerce. 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, mehllama said:

I don't see them getting there by discouraging commerce. 

If the split is as highly tilted towards land as I think it is, then commerce can go take a running jump.

Region ownership has been dropping gradually for years, and the ceiling for profitability will come a lot sooner than we would expect. SL could drop dead with 50K of us online watching it happen.

[Selene Gregoire]

17 minutes ago, IvyLarae said:

Sadly thats how its always been viewed, online and RL. The poor are viewed as dead beats who live off the government and the rich are usually the ones imposing that view

I'm poor. I don't get SNAP benefits or welfare or any of those government programs. I don't qualify. Why? I'm either too old, too young, nor do I have children young enough and living at home. All 6 of them are adults, the oldest is almost 45 with the youngest being 25. My point is, just because someone is poor does not mean they get any kind of help from the government agencies OR the churches. I'm just one of hundreds of thousands in this boat.

[steeljane42]

40 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

If the split is as highly tilted towards land as I think it is, then commerce can go take a running jump.

Region ownership has been dropping gradually for years, and the ceiling for profitability will come a lot sooner than we would expect. SL could drop dead with 50K of us online watching it happen.

Private estates number didn't change at all  for this past year after the 15% price decrease. It even did show a small YTD growth around autumn-early spring, but seems like it did bounce back to zero this month. I guess we'll see in a year, was another 8% price cut enough to make it grow a bit or were other negative parts of today's annoncement more important to people and some more will move on completely or stop bothering with the land at least.

Edited May 30, 2019 by steeljane42
typos as always

[Selene Gregoire]

6 minutes ago, steeljane42 said:

Private estates number didn't change at all  for this past year after the 15% price decrease. It even did show a small YTD growth around autumn-early spring, but seems like it did bounce back to zero this month. I guess we'll see in a year, was another 8% price cut enough to make it grow a bit or were other negative parts of today's annoncement more important to people and some more will move on completely or stop bothering land at least.

Might help to include a link to Tyche's site.

http://www.gridsurvey.com/

ETA: I had to look. 

Quote

• Monthly Tier Estimates - Private Estates c.US$2.970 Million, Mainland c.US$0.704 Million

 

Edited May 30, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[Desudesudesuka]

What I have to say on the changes to group membership for free players, but framed as a creator:

This is not just bad for everyone not paying for premium, this is bad for everyone and will have a chilling effect on SL. This affects merchants in quite a major way, because we use groups for our stores.  Store groups are needed to supply updates, promotions, support, and even more through services like Caspervend. Up and coming merchants are going to be hit the hardest by this, given their groups may not offer as much benefit users may opt not to bother joining, or they may even be left. This affects sim owners, because they use groups for land management. This affects everyone not paying for premium, because they need to enter groups for rez permissions (like us for renting store locations) and to get benefits from merchants.

[Vanity Fair]

3 hours ago, steeljane42 said:

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).

I totally agree with this comment. I have alts who are at the 42-group limit and having to go back down to 34 groups just to be able to add a new group is going to be a ROYAL. PAIN. IN. THE. ASS.

More commentary here: https://ryanschultz.com/2019/05/29/linden-lab-announces-a-mix-of-good-news-and-bad-news-for-second-life-users/

These changes are not a surprise to me, though. Linden Lab has already stated that they want to earn income less from selling virtual land, and more from selling accounts and other fees.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Vanity Fair

[Seba Serpente]

I just switched to premium when Bellisseria went online. Not renewing once this year premium is done. I have enough problem with that 5% Process Credit fee cutting down my revenue by a lot, not going to invest even more on the premium.