A brief note on pricing changes, which ran long.

[BelindaN]

4 hours ago, Criss Cheri said:

Dear Lindens,

 

Why not create a Premium Lite?

• With no Linden Home or mainland parcel (but the ability to rent mainland)
• 70 Group Memberships
• 80 Offline IMs
• Exclusive Premium-Only Areas
• Maybe 150 L$ weekly
• Premium Support

All for 5 US$ monthly and 50 US$ annually? 

That might help the people who are still willing to pay for some extras but not being able to effort that much. And many do not realy need a home.

 

I would probably go for that deal. Right now I don't need a home.......

And if it included my alts, well now then........

Edited May 30, 2019 by BelindaN

[Selene Gregoire]

23 minutes ago, Jo Yardley said:

One does not exclude the other.

Certainly. Doesn't change FB's exceptionally horrible track record though.

To clarify, I wasn't referring to the people who use FB. I was referring to the company itself.

[Janet Voxel]

2 minutes ago, BelindaN said:

I would probably go for that deal. Right now I don't need a home.......

I’m liking the idea of different types of premium plans more and more.....

[Malin Sabra]

Just now, janetosilio said:

I’m liking the idea of different types of premium plans more and more.....

Bronze, Silver, and Gold memberships?

[Asadora Summers]

Different levels of premium memberships like this:

Bronze - You'd be lucky if the things promised works or actually is fullfilled

Silver - Wonderful half of the things you have paid a membership for actually works - sorry about the other half

Gold - Wooo! You are the cream of the crop! Remember those change of names we had promised you back in 2018? You'll get everything else, but not that... that's later in the year. 

 

/me rolls eyes. 

 

[Malin Sabra]

I'm totally against micro transaction type platforms, but it may just work on a platform like SL, but I wouldn't call it a micro tranaction if people were able to pick their premium wants.

Set price for group increase, set price if you want the 1024 or not.

Basically a build your own membership. Check the boxes for all the features you want, then check out.

I'm sure this isn't something that could easily be done and may end up causing more issues in the end then it would be worth dealing with between technical issues and customer support.

[Beth Macbain]

If people think LL is so incompetent, why are they using their products? 

Asking honestly. I've seen so many sneering comments about the utter inadequacy of the SL experience due to the utterly moronic people working for LL, I have no idea why some of you even have an account. If I have that much distaste and distrust for a company, I sure as hell don't use their products...

[FlightlessAngel]

4 hours ago, Criss Cheri said:

Dear Lindens,

 

Why not create a Premium Lite?

• With no Linden Home or mainland parcel (but the ability to rent mainland)
• 70 Group Memberships
• 80 Offline IMs
• Exclusive Premium-Only Areas
• Maybe 150 L$ weekly
• Premium Support

All for 5 US$ monthly and 50 US$ annually? 

That might help the people who are still willing to pay for some extras but not being able to effort that much. And many do not realy need a home.

 

This is an idea I think some people could really get behind. It would be cheaper than full premium and include key features that the everyday player would want. I mentioned in another post that a lot of people are tempted to get premium purely to help them get into events a bit easier or for the groups. If there was a cheaper alternative like this one I think it would pick up some addition premium members and maybe bring back a few members that decided to drop their premium status.

[Jo Yardley]

There really aren't that many alternatives to SL.
The few virtual worlds that are as good and offer as much freedom as SL lack traffic.

[Jo Yardley]

I also like the idea of different kind of premium accounts.
Plenty of us have no need for 70 groups, Linden Homes, workspace, free gifts, the stipend, etc.
The only reason I'm premium is because you kind of have to when you own land but also for the chat support, although I'm still upset about this service no longer being available 24/7.

 

[Blueberryxx]

4 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

If people think LL is so incompetent, why are they using their products? 

Asking honestly. I've seen so many sneering comments about the utter inadequacy of the SL experience due to the utterly moronic people working for LL, I have no idea why some of you even have an account. If I have that much distaste and distrust for a company, I sure as hell don't use their products...

I don't think anyone is suggesting that. But SL is a user made world. People get hooked on SL because of user created content. SL experience is almost entirely user created. While I do sincerely love LL and do not think of any Linden as useless at all, that would be the answer to your question. 

[Cam Mode]

Not Gold Silver Bronze but

Full rez-  things pop when you land

Gray rez- just wait, wait , little more - THERE now you see the region

Good luck --Am I still teleporting? I hear the music, did I step on somebody?- sorry sorry

[Beth Macbain]

1 minute ago, Blueberryxx said:

I don't think anyone is suggesting that. But SL is a user made world. People get hooked on SL because of user created content. SL experience is almost entirely user created. While I do sincerely love LL and do not think of any Linden as useless at all, that would be the answer to your question. 

Oh, some are... you don't have to read too far up this thread to see some of the snarky and ugly comments made about the Lab. 

[Asadora Summers]

LL leads us on with all these 'promises' of '...this will come later in the year!' Then two years later, that promise of something great to come hasn't arrived. 

Also, a lot of us have been in SL for a very very long time  - so we know the pattern of when things change: LL makes a change - we complain or rejoice - when we rejoice as we did when we got an increase in group slots and now we complain because basic account holders are having their group slots slashed by 7 whilst premium members get a raise in group slots by 10. (I'm a premium member, and personally I think it is unfair to the basic account holders.) 

Our Stipend has never been increased, yet we end up paying more on the hope that something will be introduced that will make not having a stipend increase worth it. 
As consumers/customers/what have you - we have a right to complain - just as LL seemingly has a right to charge whatever they want too for whatever hard to grasp reasons. 

SL is what we make it. We all have different reasons for putting money into it, having premium or choosing not too. A basic account holders lindens is just as good as a premium member's lindens. We were asked for feedback and thus we are giving it - it's how business works. 

 

[Malin Sabra]

Just now, Cam Mode said:

Not Gold Silver Bronze but

Full rez-  things pop when you land

Gray rez- just wait, wait , little more - THERE now you see the region

Good luck --Am I still teleporting? I hear the music, did I step on somebody?- sorry sorry

I don't think that would attract many new users lol

[Selene Gregoire]

Just now, Cam Mode said:

Not Gold Silver Bronze but

Full rez-  things pop when you land

Gray rez- just wait, wait , little more - THERE now you see the region

Good luck --Am I still teleporting? I hear the music, did I step on somebody?- sorry sorry

It's that the way it's been for the past 15 years? 

[Blueberryxx]

Just now, Beth Macbain said:

Oh, some are... you don't have to read too far up this thread to see some of the snarky and ugly comments made about the Lab. 

It is definitely unnecessary, and accomplishes nothing.

[Jason1 Draconia]

8 hours ago, Grumpity Linden said:

Hi! This started out as a brief clarification on some things causing confusion, and has turned into a long bullet-point list.  Rather than replying to the numerous threads on the forums, I'm going to try to put it all together here.  As long as the conversation remains civil, I'll do my best to respond to questions. Please point the pitchforks away from my eyes though...  

• Land prices:  Full estates get ~$20/mo reduction in price. For the first time we are also reducing GF/BD region pricing.  This is not a frivolous gift to the 1%. This has real and proven effects on the rents many more pay. 
   
• 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.   

• We’re not lowering limits out of spite, groups really are quite a strain on our back end for a variety of painful historical reasons, including overloading group functionality instead of having other tools.  This subject alone is worth a novel liberally sprinkled with tears. So anyway, we don’t hate basic users, and in fact we work hard to retain our free-to-play offering as one of the most generous across many industries. But yes, no big surprise, we do want to nudge active residents to become subscribers, because we think it’s a great value, and - as many have noted - we’re also running a business. But no, we're not shutting our doors to non-premium residents. Rumors of our insanity and villainy have been slightly exaggerated.  

• Fees to process credit are going up, effective June 24.  L$ buy fees are not. Yes, this is another step in rebalancing the economy.  It’s also the right step, because the regulatory climate has evolved dramatically since SL first started out, and in order to continue to offer a platform for creators to actually make money, we have a lot of ongoing work to keep up with those regulations. Compliance is generally no fun (shh don’t tell our compliance people I said so - they’re wonderful and actually think it’s fun!) but it keeps all of us in business and the bad guys out. If we weren't doing this work, we would literally have to stop offering the ability to process credit. 

• We’re making lasting investments into SL in infrastructure, features, and content.  While we set aside some special morsels only for premium members, the work we are doing benefits everyone - region crossings, attachment reliability, marketplace improvements, inventory stability, land auctions - are just a few examples.  No one project will please all of our residents, but we make an effort to address the needs of all communities in turn. We can’t get everything done immediately, but we’re focused and determined to keep SL successful and evolving. It’s a unique and thriving world we work hard to support. 

Look, this is obviously a bitter pill.  We can't keep slashing land prices at the rate we did last year.  We can’t raise other prices and yet keep everyone happy.  But we sincerely believe this is the best path forward - and hope you will come around too. 

P.S. we haven't given up on Last Names either.  

Land Prices:   I remember when I started out on here about 9 years ago, the mad rush of disgruntled and upset tenants leaving or being forced to leave their Estate homes, due to the Estate Owners having to abandon them. The Estate owners could not compete against the larger grandfathered Estate pricing.. Like all things when rentals empty,  they will empty from the small tater Estate holders and grandfathered sorts first to fill in the lower rated grandfathered Estates owned by the big guys that can weather a tenant drought longer. So to me this is  for the 1%. Cheaper rates are great business, ask anyone who shops at Wal-Mart or on Amazon.   

Premium Prices:    It has been a long time and glad to hear it is getting bumped up, like most everyone I am not fond of that as well, but it works for the length of time for no increases.

Group Limits: Not much to say here (openly) lol. All good move along

Processing Fees:  Increasing the processing fees also okay to see the increase. Years ago once the SL Marketplace was setup, it made for some great changes, many of our tenant store owners closed their in world shops, as they only (at that time) needed space for a 3-5 prim Sales box and that was updated a few years later to needing nothing just add the items into your inventory folder Market area(? I forget what it is called). Hopefully  the fees from the marketplace offset the loss of all that  rented mainland and mall shop rentals in World to make it a meaningful venture. 

Investing in SL's day to day:  Glad to hear about the lasting investments into the SL infrastructure, features etc. I too am and have been supporting SL and LL thru payments both from tenants and myself over the past 9 plus years, but SL always seems to change...

Overview takeaways:  Please keep paying your Estates/Mainland thru the summer(the 1% needs time to absorb your tenants and further down the road more Linden home regions etc to be setup ((look out 1%))), pay for an extra year of a locked in Prime account old rate starting...in a few days but only... for a few weeks.  But who knows what the future holds for sure, just my 2 cents...

[Bebe Bunny]

9 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

 

Just asking about new ideas or technologies that are still being under consideration for the platform, I just like new stuff. 

[Brett Linden]

Hi, everyone. Jumping in to add that we are reading through the many questions and listening to all feedback and suggestions. Please be patient as various Lindens read through the comments and respond with some answers.

[Evangeline Arcadia]

1 minute ago, Brett Linden said:

Hi, everyone. Jumping in to add that we are reading through the many questions and listening to all feedback and suggestions.

Thanks Brett, good to know!:)

[Egon Rothschild]

10 hours ago, Grumpity Linden said:

Premium prices are going up on June 24.

Will the weekly stipend be going up also to reflect this price increase?

[Janet Voxel]

39 minutes ago, Malin Sabra said:

Bronze, Silver, and Gold memberships?

It doesn’t have to be gold, silver, bronze. Many people have said they don’t go premium because it doesn’t suit them. So why not tailor it to suit other users’ needs.

Some people don’t see the value of spending x amount for more groups, land, etc. But they would pay a little less for premium that don’t have a couple of those things.

Business owners have said this is going to hurt their business. Well, really...why isn’t there a premium for business owners? I’m sure there are features they could benefit from that aren’t in a premium membership.

 

As it is now a premium membership is kind of one size fits all. There should be alternatives.

[Oz Linden]

5 hours ago, martinmoun said:

Most of us are member of 42 groups now. What happens at the day the change to 35 applies? Will 7 groups just randomly disappear? Or will we stay in 42 groups and and if we leave one we just can't add a new group until it's 35?

The latter.  We will not delete any of your groups; you just won't be able to join new ones until you're under your limit.

[Vick Forcella]

I am preparing a blog post. This is what I have written so far.

Our landlord has giveth +512sqm and Bellisseria.
Our landlord will taketh a price increase of 26% ... 37.5% for Premium membership.
Also, if you are fortunate enough to make money in SL, the cost of converting L$ to US$ will increase 100% (from 2,5% to 5%, no caps).
Basic membership will have less groups and less off-line IM's.
A full sim will see a price reduction of 8%.

Ideas on how to improve the text?