A brief note on pricing changes, which ran long.

[Skylar Littlepaws]

This is my first time writing in the forums in here so bear with me.  lol.

I get the reasons why the increase needs to happen.  Running a virtual world isn't cheap and can be very costly.  Being part of a virtual world that closed down and recently opened, I know it can be a struggle to make some profit to keep it going. I do have a few suggestions that could benefit from both Premiums and Non-Premium members.

For Premium Members

Groups:  Increase to 70.

Weekly lindens increase from 300 to 500L.

If you pay a yearly fee you receive a bonus of 2,000 lindens.  That will be given after 30 days.

If you pay a quarterly fee, you get your bonus of 1,000 lindens.  That will be given after 30 days.

Transaction Fee:  Keep at 2.5 percent or increase it to 3 percent.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Non - Premiums:

Groups:  Keep it at 42.

Transaction Fee:  Increases to 5 percent.

Offline Messages can decrease to 15.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The new homes are beautiful, reducing the tier costs are great.  However; I feel that the perks of having premium haven't really changed much.  Maybe these ideas might help to boost subscription and also, to keep non-premium members happy.

 

I do have a question though about the groups.  If they are overloading the group functionality then why increase them, to begin with?  Wouldn't it make more sense to keep them low until you find a way to not to overload them?

 

 

Edited May 30, 2019 by Coolnet Ordinary

[SibyllVane]

1 hour ago, Bengta said:

I do not see one reason to pay an increase for less benefits, especially when those benefits are not equal for all premium members.  I think the premium should be based on what we have access to, and if I do NOT have access to a house boat, as many premium members do not, why should I continue to pay even more??

This!!!!

[Mitchell Indigo]

In terms of the groups, Linden Lab should delete all inactive groups off of their servers.  After that's done, then I feel that the max groups for basic members should be raised to 50 and premium groups to 100.

[Heathernorton]

I have a question about the upcoming new membership level. Will it be announced before the June 24th deadline of renewing the membership? If I renew, (I am annual) will I be able to pay the difference and become this new "super user" if it interests me? How would that be calculated if it is announced after June 24th? on the old rate or the new rate?

I apologize if this was answered before. I am having a hard time keeping up with the thread.

 

 

[Chronometria]

Bring back last names and I happily pays more on my premium for dat to happen. I even offers to pay for getting a name - I pays the big bucks - takes my money!

[Purplerain Horowitz]

2 hours ago, Grumpity Linden said:

Whew, I'm having a hard time keeping up. Calling in reinforcements! And thank you for the overnight ponies... 

There's still confusion about the pre-pay option.  Not surprising, because it's a bit different from how we usually do things, but here's what it will look like.  Say you're a monthly premium member today.  When you log into your account after June 3, you'll see these options:

If you chose to extend by one month, you will be billed $9.50 and your new billing date will be +1 mo from where it was. 

If you want to extend by a year, you'll need to change your membership type to annual, then do the prepay flow.  You'll be billed $72 and your new billing date will be +1yr from where it was.  The next time you get billed will be at the new annual rate (unless you change your premium membership before that).  But it will also be year 2020!

Hope this helps.  

So if I am understanding you correctly, if I just paid my $72.00 two or three months ago I can still pay up for another year at the current price? 

[Mitchell Indigo]

Who here is willing to bet that there many parcels on the main land will go abandoned?

[MiriamDara]

12 hours ago, Grumpity Linden said:

• Premium prices are going up on June 24.  Starting June 3 and until June 24,  Premium accounts have 3 weeks to pre-pay an additional cycle of premium at the old rates.  Best deal is, of course, prepaying for annual regardless of your current level. We hope you can take advantage of it. If you’re paying quarterly today, you can continue as quarterly. We will no longer offer it to new premium signups.  With the new prices, VAT will be charged on monthly and quarterly but not annual (of course only in the countries where VAT applies).
   
• We looked. We hadn’t raised premium prices in the history of premium prices in SL. Crazy! A lot of value has been added to premium over the last few years (new Linden Homes, double tier, reduced mainland prices, premium access, more offline IMs, more transaction history, more groups, more animesh, experiences, and yet more to come) and we are raising prices to reflect that.   

Ok, so LL hasn't raised Premium fees in years, I get that they might need to raise fees a little but to jump from $72 to $99 in a single bound is a little much. The perks you mention, are not all that great.. yes the new linden homes are nice(if you can get one) but the premium "gifts" are a joke at best... they are so primy that you can't even use them on Linden Homes so what is the point of them. The extra groups are nice, but I don't want them at the expense of the free members losing there groups. There are only 2 "perks" I think most people even use beside the linden home... the easier excess to Events and the stipend(which has also never been raised... I mean $300L is not all that much... try raising it to at least $500L and it might be a selling point). If you want to attract new members, this is NOT the way to do it... make SL more affordable and more people will join. I currently have 2 premier memberships, but you can best believe that I am going to drop at least one when my annual renewal comes up...   LL needs to not use trickle down economics…. we already know it doesn't work. 

[Asadora Summers]

2 minutes ago, Chronometria said:

Bring back last names and I happily pays more on my premium for dat to happen. I even offers to pay for getting a name - I pays the big bucks - takes my money!

Oh yeah, name changes are coming later in the year.... back in 2018 XD 

They are still working on them this year... 2019 XD

Woooo! Can't wait! 

[Purplerain Horowitz]

2 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

I think it's pretty sad residents don't appreciate what they have. 

We do appreciate what we have, that is why the larger majority of us are not happy that LL is changing what we have?  Obviously most of us appreciate "what we have" or there would not be a major blow up over it? 

[Asadora Summers]

17 minutes ago, Coolnet Ordinary said:

This is my first time writing in the forums in here so bear with me.  lol.

I get the reasons why the increase needs to happen.  Running a virtual world isn't cheap and can be very costly.  Being part of a virtual world that closed down and recently opened, I know it can be a struggle to make some profit to keep it going. I do have a few suggestions that could benefit from both Premiums and Non-Premium members.

For Premium Members

Groups:  Increase to 70.

Weekly lindens increase from 300 to 500L.

If you pay a yearly fee you receive a bonus of 2,000 lindens.  That will be given after 30 days.

If you pay a quarterly fee, you get your bonus of 1,000 lindens.  That will be given after 30 days.

Transaction Fee:  Keep at 2.5 percent or increase it to 3 percent.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Non - Premiums:

Groups:  Keep it at 42.

Transaction Fee:  Increases to 5 percent.

Offline Messages can decrease to 15.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The new homes are beautiful, reducing the tier costs are great.  However; I feel that the perks of having premium haven't really changed much.  Maybe these ideas might help to boost subscription and also, to keep non-premium members happy.

 

I do have a question though about the groups.  If they are overloading the group functionality then why increase them, to begin with?  Wouldn't it make more sense to keep them low until you find a way to not to overload them?

 

 

Maybe the basic account holder group slots overloads more than the premium members group slots.......

You raised a good point - if groups are a strain then they take away from one but increase the other....... 

[Grumpity Linden]

2 hours ago, Kendall Ferryhill said:

I'm not for any type of micro transactions my self,  whats next Loot boxes ? 

NOPE. No. Uhuh.  

[Theresa Tennyson]

26 minutes ago, Tythesly1 said:

You should really add more to the premium membership before raising the prices. I barely use what you have to offer because its not needed. The only thing i use for premium is the stipend, increased group limit, priority access, and the offline notifications.

All the things I marked in red were added before they raised the prices.

[Aris Pancake]

We are talking about the raise of Process Credit being Over the top . We know they must be a increase somewhere to maintain Secondlife Economic, i respect that . But the 2.5% Increase is Dramatic and The questions is How much every year is going to be a Increase? Is there going to be a end one day? Or every year we will face another 2.5 % ? One thing is that there must be a fees and im willing to pay but at the end of the day we are talking about processing Money to give out to Paypal. IS it going to be faster for us at least? Whats more does we get from benefit? Nothing. I dont see a reasons valuable to resonate this Ammount .

[bigmoe Whitfield]

I see people going on about fee's.   VISA/Mastercard, MOST processors raised their fee's,  I do own my own webhosting/vps/vpn business,  my fee's went up,   I am passing these along to my customers with emails going our reflecting my new pricings,  some people are not happy, but THIS is not a one time fee per day, this is PER transaction and get's expensive quickly if I try to eat it myself,  first year I was in business I ate the fee's, I was in the black so bad, I had to make a change, I had to offload my fee's to my customers or I was going out of business,  While this might not be the case for LL directly,  these fee's can affect bottom lines and make companies rethink about how they need to manage their profits and the expenditures.

 

I know people will not be happy with my reply, but basically it has to be this way. 

[Selene Gregoire]

18 minutes ago, Purplerain Horowitz said:

So if I am understanding you correctly, if I just paid my $72.00 two or three months ago I can still pay up for another year at the current price? 

I'll take that bet I'm gonna regret!

 

Oh wait...

 

 

 

Johnny rosin up your bow!

[Skylar Littlepaws]

16 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I see people going on about fee's.   VISA/Mastercard, MOST processors raised their fee's,  I do own my own webhosting/vps/vpn business,  my fee's went up,   I am passing these along to my customers with emails going our reflecting my new pricings,  some people are not happy, but THIS is not a one time fee per day, this is PER transaction and get's expensive quickly if I try to eat it myself,  first year I was in business I ate the fee's, I was in the black so bad, I had to make a change, I had to offload my fee's to my customers or I was going out of business,  While this might not be the case for LL directly,  these fee's can affect bottom lines and make companies rethink about how they need to manage their profits and the expenditures.

 

I know people will not be happy with my reply, but basically it has to be this way. 

If that's the case why not have the fees handle by PayPal or Stripe?  This way they won't have to handle any of the processing fees.  Most companies are going through third parties and have them handle all of the transactions. Both PayPal and Stripe have a 2.9 percent  + 30 cents charge.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Coolnet Ordinary
had to re-word what i wrote.

[Selene Gregoire]

10 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I see people going on about fee's.   VISA/Mastercard, MOST processors raised their fee's,  I do own my own webhosting/vps/vpn business,  my fee's went up,   I am passing these along to my customers with emails going our reflecting my new pricings,  some people are not happy, but THIS is not a one time fee per day, this is PER transaction and get's expensive quickly if I try to eat it myself,  first year I was in business I ate the fee's, I was in the black so bad, I had to make a change, I had to offload my fee's to my customers or I was going out of business,  While this might not be the case for LL directly,  these fee's can affect bottom lines and make companies rethink about how they need to manage their profits and the expenditures.

 

I know people will not be happy with my reply, but basically it has to be this way. 

I use a debit card and there are no fees imposed by my bank on it or my bank account. If you are a student or considered to be a senior citizen (50/55 +), no fee accounts are available. But you have to ask about them because even though they are available, the banks naturally want you to pay out your nose for an account that has a minimum balance that's too high for low and fixed incomes. 

 

Was it really necessary to raise your prices? 

Edited May 30, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[Claire Atheria]

48 minutes ago, Tythesly1 said:

Instead of raising prices.... create an "a la carte" system where we pay for what we want?

This -- I was just about to suggest an "a la carte" feature would pretty much make everyone happy. Obviously you can't do that with only 2 membership levels, especially when one of those levels is made less desirable. People would simply pay for what's important to them. LL would then be able to see what's popular, and improve those areas first.

Edited May 30, 2019 by xrockinfree

[Barry Yowman]

13 hours ago, Shauna Greymoon said:

Will there be anything in place to make the loss of all those slots easier for us? It's a big loss socially, commercially, etc...

Only paid members are looked after free accounts they no long want.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

Just now, Selene Gregoire said:

I use a debit card and there are no fees imposed by my bank on it or my bank account. If you are a student or considered to be a senior citizen (50/55 +), no fee accounts are available. But you have to ask about them because even though they are available, the banks naturally want you to pay out your nose for an account that has a minimum balance that's too high for low and fixed incomes. 

Processing fee's still apply, NOT on your end, but LL'S end.   sorry for the confusion.

[Skylar Littlepaws]

1 minute ago, Selene Gregoire said:

I use a debit card and there are no fees imposed by my bank on it or my bank account. If you are a student or considered to be a senior citizen (50/55 +), no fee accounts are available. But you have to ask about them because even though they are available, the banks naturally want you to pay out your nose for an account that has a minimum balance that's too high for low and fixed incomes. 

 

Was it really necessary to raise your prices? 

Your bank may not have a fee, but VISA/MASTERCARD/DISCOVER/AMEX all have a transaction fee.

[Barry Yowman]

12 hours ago, Grumpity Linden said:

Yes.  We are, in the background sekritly planning for the end of SL in general and ... um ... basic accounts in particular ...until only the Premiums remain? Does that sound right? I may have mixed things up, it's late, but you get the gist.  

Seriously, we've tried very hard to be as transparent as possible about our plans.  I don't know if there's anything specific you have in mind that we've left unspoken

 

The end of SL seams to be near for basic users ? 

[Selene Gregoire]

Just now, bigmoe Whitfield said:

Processing fee's still apply, NOT on your end, but LL'S end.   sorry for the confusion.

Ah got it. Sorry. You don't need to answer my eta question now. Still battling the migraine.

[hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian]

 

3 minutes ago, xrockinfree said:

This -- I was just about to suggest an "a la carte" feature would pretty much make everyone happy. Obviously you can't do that with only 2 membership levels, especially when one of those levels is made less desirable. People would simply pay for what they want. LL would then be able to see what's popular, and improve those areas first.

I agree, it would be great...but looks like it's not feasible... 😞

2 hours ago, Grumpity Linden said:

There are many great and reasonable a la carte suggestions out here (and quite a few we considered internally).  The truth is, we would be neck deep in bugs for the next 5 years, and while we're still open to implementing _some small number_ of the premium features a la carte, we have to pass on the "build your own membership" as a full blown offering.