Reducing Group Allowances for basic members could seriously hurt your SL income

[Lasher Oh]

All the prices increases aside (they suck of course) I feel one of the most retrograde steps that will hurt merchants long term is the reduction of group entitlement for basic members from the current 42 to 35. When I first looked at the chart I thought it was a typo. Group membership allowance has always been too low especially for basic members but now people will have to start shedding more groups and that will very likely start to hurt merchant's income and arguably Linden Lab's too.

^L^

Edited May 30, 2019 by Lasher Oh

[Alyona Su]

It will still be 10 more groups than the 25 that *everyone* was capped at for years.  //dealwithit

Also, in typical hysteria fashion, you distribute *wrong* paranoid information: 

Quote

but now people will have to start shedding more groups and that will very likely start to hurt merchant's income and arguably Linden Lab's too.

If you already have your 42 groups or whatever, you get to keep all of them. You simply cannot *join a new group* until you are under the new limit.

Reading the Linden Lab post about the changes is one thing. Comprehending them is entirely another.

 

Edited May 30, 2019 by Alyona Su

[Phoebe Avro]

1 hour ago, Alyona Su said:

It will still be 10 more groups than the 25 that *everyone* was capped at for years.  //dealwithit

Also, in typical hysteria fashion, you distribute *wrong* paranoid information: 

If you already have your 42 groups or whatever, you get to keep all of them. You simply cannot *join a new group* until you are under the new limit.

Reading the Linden Lab post about the changes is one thing. Comprehending them is entirely another.

 

I don't think you comprehend it.

[Alyona Su]

26 minutes ago, Phoebe Avro said:

I don't think you comprehend it.

Then time will tell. Want to place a high-value L$ wager on who's right? I proffer L$50,000 right here and now. We can find a great escrow service in-world, I'm sure.

[hurktang]

2 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

If you already have your 42 groups or whatever, you get to keep all of them. You simply cannot *join a new group* until you are under the new limit.

Reading the Linden Lab post about the changes is one thing. Comprehending them is entirely another.

 

Yes, that's exactly the problem, no one will be willing to join new groups at all. If someone want to join my group, he will have to delete 7 other groups from his list. Everyone will tend to stick on their group and it kills business. Big time.

This will have a very negative impact on all marchants and businesses in SL. Those who pay the rents. It's a terrible buisness decision for LL.

[Alyona Su]

14 minutes ago, hurktang said:

It's a terrible buisness decision for LL.

Well, with the intention of keeping things in perspective, it's an excellent business decision for LL. They (and the grid as a whole) will benefit from the changes; less load on the back-end systems, fewer costs for LL in that regard.

[hurktang]

9 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

Well, with the intention of keeping things in perspective, it's an excellent business decision for LL. They (and the grid as a whole) will benefit from the changes; less load on the back-end systems, fewer costs for LL in that regard.

You are pretty clueless if you pretend that keeping a few full text chat groups in 2019 would be of any serious consequence for a viewer that transfer megabytes of textures and 3d data every time someone enter a region. It is inconsequential on the load of the servers. You should verify things before you make such bold statements.

[Alyona Su]

4 hours ago, hurktang said:

You are pretty clueless if you pretend that keeping a few full text chat groups in 2019 would be of any serious consequence for a viewer that transfer megabytes of textures and 3d data every time someone enter a region. It is inconsequential on the load of the servers. You should verify things before you make such bold statements.

Yes, totally clueless, because every doomsayer since 2006 has always been right because they know how to run the business better than Linden Lab. You win. Feel better?

[Mollymews]

7 hours ago, hurktang said:

If someone want to join my group, he will have to delete 7 other groups from his list

yes. This is the issue

[Fox Wijaya]

4 hours ago, Mollymews said:

yes. This is the issue

depends how you see it ... i'm not premium and will have the same, i don't see it as issue, but just a time to adjust to new rules.
Pick your groups wise 

[drusilladarkwillow]

Actually most groups are useless as most of us just want the notices and a subscriber would get that done. IF more merchants offer subscribers we'll be fine but a good bit have gotten rid of theirs or had stopped using the one that they do have. I don't join many groups to start off with and they will still have more groups then what I did when I had joined SL. A good bit of groups aren't even active anymore so it's easy to downsize if you really want to. Lets be honest here, some merchant groups have become ad groups which are spam a good bit by different creators every hour and those groups are left in a hurry. It depends on the user and what they want to do on if it would hurt the creator. The only thing that would really effect them is the pay to join groups. I personally don't join those unless I really love the store as I know that most aren't that active after awhile or they don't send out as many notices as they could depending on how active the creator is with pushing out new products.

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Fox Wijaya said:

depends how you see it ... i'm not premium and will have the same, i don't see it as issue, but just a time to adjust to new rules.
Pick your groups wise 

when we are not already using 35 groups then its not an issue no

i go from my previous experience as a basic account. But first I mention about my experience when I am Premium. When I am Premium I have money to be able to afford this. I also have money to buy other things without a lot of worry. When I am in a position to buy things, I use less merchant groups

when I don't have a lot of money then I join more product groups. I use all the group slots available, 42 previously. Swapping new ones in and others out, on a one for one basis.  What groups are these ? Merchant groups, product type specialty groups, and general gift/bargain groups. I join the groups to get bargains because of my finances. Many new creator merchants (unlike established creator merchants) advertise their products and presence thru these groups to grow their clientele. They offer bargains/specials as advertising. Advertising offers without which I would have no awareness of their presence as a merchant

as hurktang points out, for me in my basic account state then to join their group, or any other group, then I will have to leave 8 other groups to add them

as you advise "pick your groups wisely" which is fine as general advice. When we take this advice tho and practise it then which 8 merchant or product specialty groups would it be wise to drop, to join this new one offered to me by hurktang.  What do I get from hurktang that is worth the loss of 8 groups memberships ? When previously it would have been a 1 for 1 swap

i draw you back to your own situation. You are in a position to buy stuff yes. When we are in a position to not have to overly worry about where the money comes from then we join less merchant/product groups

this is the point that hurktang was making. A point I agree with

[ananoelle]

13 hours ago, hurktang said:

Yes, that's exactly the problem, no one will be willing to join new groups at all. If someone want to join my group, he will have to delete 7 other groups from his list. Everyone will tend to stick on their group and it kills business. Big time.

This will have a very negative impact on all marchants and businesses in SL. Those who pay the rents. It's a terrible buisness decision for LL.

Then make a alt. Have a bank alt. The bank holds all store groups and your main holds your favourites and so on.  

 

[drusilladarkwillow]

@Mollymews Well a lot of those groups also have subscribers so you can join that instead and get the same information sent out within the group via a notecard. It's a lot less to go through at once and you're less likely to have your offline messages capped from all of the notices sent out.

[Mollymews]

8 minutes ago, drusilladarkwillow said:

@Mollymews Well a lot of those groups also have subscribers so you can join that instead and get the same information sent out within the group via a notecard. It's a lot less to go through at once and you're less likely to have your offline messages capped from all of the notices sent out.

yes there are number of ways for merchants to advertise, connect and get in front of customers. MP keywording, MP and classified advertising, parcel search naming and descriptions, own blog and content influencer blogs, events, FB, etc, etc. Subscribos as well as you say

i think that subscribos can work well, as can all these other methods also. Yesterday on here there was a little discussion about the benefits for merchants and customers if there were to be a subscribo system built into the viewer. I think many merchants and customers would happily participate in this  as an alternative to the built-in group system for simple communication of offers and stuff

 

 

 

 

[drusilladarkwillow]

Groups have always been an iffy thing. The settings for them will sometimes act like you didn't select or deselect it. I won't receive notices from groups that I tell it to and I'll be online when they're set or group IMs will open for groups that I've turned that off for. I personally prefer subscribers or I will just pop back into the store from time to time.

[Mollymews]

26 minutes ago, ananoelle said:

Then make a alt. Have a bank alt. The bank holds all store groups and your main holds your favourites and so on.  

 

hurktang was more talking about it from a basic account customer's pov. Not so much from a basic account merchant's pov. You are right in what you say about this from the merchants pov

[ananoelle]

Just now, Mollymews said:

hurktang was more talking about it from a basic account customer's pov. Not so much from a basic account merchant's pov. You are right in what you say about this from the merchants pov

I actually meant it from a customer's pov. Just about everyone has a alt why not put it to some use instead of it just being a hideaway/cheating/trolling alt. 

[Fox Wijaya]

25 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

i draw you back to your own situation.

my situation isn't really interesting or relevant, the real question is do people really need all those slots... or do people want those slots... big difference.

just a little example..a big event
the event group has 35k members ..reall hundreds, and in combination with the other event groups, thousends didn't log in for years... fgs clean up...it's just a minute of work.
next to that...those  35k members are also in the groups of the stores that participate in that event...
the event sends several notices daily
all the stores send notices ánd notices for the event ... for me that last is a load for the system thats not needed, you already know they participate in the event, from FB from the event itself and from seraphim. It's my opinion that a few of those could think about... hey lets not send multiple spam crap around.

Residents themself, and not only LL have a responsibility to get this system working better. We, or most older ones, know the groupsystem never was intended for this use, and however LL COULD have done some things, it's for us to remind that not everything is endless stretched. Use it with care. The mentality of "we can so we do" isn't the best.. we see that all the time around us in rl.

 

[Mollymews]

2 minutes ago, ananoelle said:

I actually meant it from a customer's pov. Just about everyone has a alt why not put it to some use instead of it just being a hideaway/cheating/trolling alt. 

the first part then ok I can see how that can work

on the second part tho, that seems to be a bit of a leap as a rationale

[Mollymews]

Just now, Fox Wijaya said:

my situation isn't really interesting or relevant, the real question is do people really need all those slots... or do people want those slots... big difference.

this opens up a whole other topic.  Need vs want.  When alternative viewer-based system like event management systems,  subscribo systems,  joint parcel ownerships systems, overhead tag naming systems, etc etc are introduced then we wouldn't need groups at all

as to how many groups, given the creakiness of the current system, we need or want, then LL make the call. I personally think LL made the wrong call. I have said elsewhere on here that as a current premium I would be happy to forgo the increase in groups and leave the basic account number as it was.  On the basis of my own experience.  As a Premium I don't use as many groups, as I do when I am a basic account

[drusilladarkwillow]

4 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

the first part then ok I can see how that can work

on the second part tho, that seems to be a bit of a leap as a rationale

Why else would you have an alt. The only thing I would add on to it is a bank alt for storing some of your lindens so that you don't spend it all. From a merchant point of view we have alts to help test our buildings, for the store and things of that sort. Roleplayers have alts for the different areas that they like to RP in. All of those accounts can be in different groups and I agree with what @Fox Wijaya said. Groups weren't meant for how they're used now and groups do send out a lot more notices now then what they did before and many of them are the same notices within a bunch of different groups. As a consumer, I only need 3 or 4 discount groups if I was to join them as a few stores are in more then one of them to begin with. So if you just join the big major ones then the smaller ones are technically also covered as some merchants join all of the ones that are out there. So you'll go to their store for the fifty-five Fridays deal or whatever and will see the other deals as well that they have going on. Even the gotcha and midnight mania groups, would only need 2-4 of those as the same messages get posted in all of the ones that whoever is posting it is also in. So the ones with the most ACTIVE users are the ones that you'll want to join.

 

Groups should be cleaned up and have the inactive users removed and those with deleted accounts as well. Group members don't load up after they hit x amount of people so if it's a merchant group and you need help from a csr, you wouldn't be able to do it the fast and easy way via the group members list if they aren't listed within their store (which may be full from a sale that they have going on) so you'll end up posting a message within the group and it may or may not get answered as that csr may be busy in their IM's helping others.

[Mollymews]

2 minutes ago, drusilladarkwillow said:

Why else would you have an alt

as my other personal group member. So I can wear vanity tags of my own wording over my head. Vanity tags which are not prim text tags

[Fox Wijaya]

4 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

 LL make the call. I personally think LL made the wrong call.

can be, that's a opinion of many, and choices always open a door, but also close others.
We'll now have to deal with it, and we can't change it.
If ever comes a new system, we'd hear the call for the old system again because also the new one will have it's limitations ... and imagine LL will ask money for it...the roof would hit the sky again.

[drusilladarkwillow]

4 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

as my other personal group member. So I can wear vanity tags of my own wording over my head. Vanity tags which are not prim text tags

Tags are mainly just for you. No one really pays attention to them and some people even have that option turned off within their viewer. I for one pay no attention to what tag someone has over their head.