A brief note on pricing changes, which ran long.

[Annie Nova]

3 hours ago, DonnaCasta said:

Uhm, tho i agree with you it's privately owned yes, but who makes SL the way it looks ?  Users.  So in some way, they kinda do owe us something.  Without users putting money and creating content, would there be a SL ?

Sorry but I have to disagree with you, I shop at a lot of private companies where I live and while myself and others keep the stores in business they absolutely do NOT owe us anything, maybe a sale every now and then, but nothing more. Don't like the way LL runs SL? then hit that little red x in the corner. Just sayin'....

[Selene Gregoire]

1 minute ago, Jo Yardley said:

Same here.
Even with lots of people excited about my plans and ready to start renting homes and shops in the new sim, it is still more than I can afford to pay so for both my regions we first had to organise events for months, fund raising, auctions, etc, etc.
Starting a sim costs a fortune.
Not just the setup fee is something you need to make magically appear you also need to have enough to pay the tier for one maybe even two months while you set up the region.
The cheaper they make it the more people rent regions, start communities, open shops, etc.
All of that would be good for SL.

I completely agree.  I never have understood LL's reasoning behind making people pay hundreds (if not thousands haven't looked in along time) of dollars just to get a sim going. There really has never been that many people that have that kind of cash to spare. Just imagine how full SL would be if they dropped the set up fee. It wouldn't make the land barons happy though and LL has always catered to them while the rest of us plebs struggle just to stay inworld.

[Sweet Valentine]

44 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Yes I know I've asked this before but I'm going to keep asking until I get an answer. What have I (or any basic account) ever done to anyone that I deserve to be punished and ostracized? Is everyone afraid I'm going to be that competitive? I'm not. All I want is to be able to pull in enough to cover my expenses. I'm not even looking to make any kind of profit. Just to be able to stay in SL and be able to pay for a place to live and work. Is that really too much to ask?

if you are making money to buy things, pay rent shop for fun things then yes i think anyone making a profit in Sl should be premium its not fair that free folks to make money and do nothing to cover the costs of having a business there...and im not taking about shopping for clothes or home decorating things that is my opinion...its how a real life business works also

[DarkRavenWolfie]

can you please actually update the engine so that it doesnt run like hot smothered garbage on basically any pc?

 

 

maybe this should be your priority instead of trying to pull the rug off basic accounts, especially since many of those people including myself may have spent some pretty penny topping up linden cash through your service.

Edited May 31, 2019 by DarkRavenWolfie

[Selene Gregoire]

10 minutes ago, Sweet Valentine said:

if you are making money to buy things, pay rent shop for fun things then yes i think anyone making a profit in Sl should be premium its not fair that free folks to make money and do nothing to cover the costs of having a business there...and im not taking about shopping for clothes or home decorating things that is my opinion...its how a real life business works also

What makes you say basics don't cover the costs of doing business in SL? Got anything to back that statement up with? 

I've owned and operated businesses in RL so I do know what it takes to run one and keep the doors open. I've also had a business in SL before and no one begrudged me being basic. I have to pay the same fees to LL for MP as premiums do, the same fees if I were to cash out, etc. And, unlike others, I do plan to have an inworld store again so I would be paying for the land even if it's indirectly. In the end LL still gets their cuts.

So what it boils down to for you is if someone is of low or fixed income they shouldn't be allowed to have an SL. That may not be what you are thinking but that is the end result. You know what that is called? Discrimination. Which is illegal in the US.

Edited May 31, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[MLALRS7044]

 

 

1

18 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. 

 

Well. And also i think that you guys want everyone to join Sansar for free i think. Hehehehe

[Annie Nova]

3 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Saturday, you can!  Sell the $L you've earned on the LindEx.  The proceeds go into your $USD Balance.  Whenever LL collects land fees or Premium dues, they go look there first.  Your registered payment method is only charged if there isn't enough money in your $USD Balance to cover the charges.

ok, so say I have tier to pay, and I cash out and let it sit in USD, will I be charged that 5% or is that only if I transfer it to my PayPal or bank account?

[Callie Cline]

5 hours 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. 

no, actually it doesn't have to be that way. there are many many ways a business can increase revenue. people are upset about premium going up 3 dollars a month but what about people who could make 1000 a month? they went from paying 1 dollar (after conversion fees from lindens to dollars)  to then 10 dollars (max) to 25 dollars max to (per 1000) to now overnight 50 dollars????? that is INSANE. 

ebb indicated when he was talking about Sansar years ago predicting it's huge success, how they would give free land and make the money from the multi million dollar economy he expected to have. and charging fees to creators and making a lot of money of creators. so i think it's his core belief slowly being rolled over to SL because Sansar did not even come close to being a success. from what i read the peak users online last year was 140? or so at one time. 140???? that to me would be classified as an Epic fail. 

i LOVE second life. i've had amazing adventures in this virtual world since i joined, but charging content creators so so so much from one dollar to now 500 (per 10k) is CRAZY and it is really disrespectful. if there are not BIG creators there will NOT be little ones. the bigger ones set trends, make markets, and create reasons for people to engage and stay. their value can not be diminished. (as far as what they provide for residents to enjoy) 

anyway, i understand businesses need to occasionally raise prices however, moving servers to the cloud they SAVE money. why not pass that along to the creators? we have a ton of expenses to do business. in our particular business we pay for many outside servers, staff, and just countless amounts so another 2.5% increase in a bit over a year is startling. my guess is he's going to keep doing it to meet his value of a 20% or more amount. (he said something at an event about making money from the economy and how they had not done that well in SL. and how it should be like taxes... sigh. like taxes are something people really have a good feeling about. i would really ask them to reconsider this doubling for cashing out. i  have never in my life heard of any company increase anything so much ever. seems wrong. 

anyway... sometimes i wonder what they are thinking at LL. it's such a great place (second life) yet to a long time resident who saw it grow and then watch them make change after change that has made them lose so many people, i wonder why they keep making what seems like "mistakes" (if they want to grow). 

there is so much potential for growth and yet changes keep happening making it go the opposite way. i don't get it. 

i hope if any Lindens are reading this they don't take offense to it. i rarely if ever have posted in forums but it saddens me to hear of more people leaving now who give and contribute so so much. it's really sad.

 

[Killer Perhaps]

8 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said:

The staggering number of people climbing over each other to get access to packed event regions kind of disagrees with you.

Because that's where you have to go for new releases from multiple high-end designers, obviously they're going to be crowded, that doesn't mean people love having to deal with it. It's also made creators lazy or rushed because of deadlines. I would love for events to die out and things to go back to active malls, hangouts, or stores themselves.
I don't want the Events from listings to die out though, if that was the original topic. 

[River Abonwood]

30 minutes ago, Sweet Valentine said:

if you are making money to buy things, pay rent shop for fun things then yes i think anyone making a profit in Sl should be premium its not fair that free folks to make money and do nothing to cover the costs of having a business there...and im not taking about shopping for clothes or home decorating things that is my opinion...its how a real life business works also

@Sweet Valentine I disagree!  I co-own a club, and I can assure you that I spend a ton of money buying things to improve and keep my place going.  Not to mention, paying the tier for the sim that we are on (because half of it is residential)!  To say that "free folk" don't add anything to SL is just crazy talk.  And guess what - we don't even make money.  We break even.  That's all we have ever asked of our place.

[DarkRavenWolfie]

23 minutes ago, MLALRS7044 said:

Well. And also i think that you guys want everyone to join Sansar for free i think. Hehehehe

*takes a looksie at steamcharts numbers of Sansar*: yeaah, im sure those grand total of 17 people who logged in the last 24 hours would be so inflated if they chased people off SL: https://steamcharts.com/app/586110

[MLALRS7044]

2 minutes ago, DarkRavenWolfie said:

*takes a looksie at steamcharts numbers of Sansar*: yeaah, im sure those grand total of 17 people who logged in the last 24 hours would be so inflated if they chased people off SL: https://steamcharts.com/app/586110

I was just kidding you know. Do not take that seriously.

Edited May 31, 2019 by MLALRS7044

[Callie Cline]

5 hours ago, Coolnet Ordinary said:

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.

i'm not sure if it's still true but i was told by the owner of paypal who was an early investor in SL and hung out there (ebay owner) that sl had the $1 cash out fee with pay pal forever as part of some deal they did with LL. that it would never change. i'm not sure if that was true but at the time (about 13 years ago) he was telling a group of us about investing in sl and why it's a great place for people to create and try to earn money and how this deal with pay pal made it so they kept almost all they earned (except for the conversion rate) 

however, it does cost money to keep up with federal law and sl is an economy and they have to abide by rules of having an economy and that really is their biggest asset (or one of them) so they must be compliant in all ways. however, i still think the increase again after one a bit over a year ago which was huge is just too much. way too much. 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Killer Perhaps said:

 I would love for events to die out and things to go back to active malls, hangouts, or stores themselves.
I don't want the Events from listings to die out though, if that was the original topic. 

Event listings are junk, spammed to hell and back, and for the most part simply ignored. The days off looking at events to see what whats going on in SL are as over as malls.

[lambskin]

It's better to pay attention to actions than words

• Move to CDNs, a cost cutting measure
• Hastily make a new linden home area that looks like a turd on the map but it's pretty popular. Didn't convert enough people to premium though I guess.
• Punish free users, the majority of users, and make premium more expensive. At the same time. What kind of desperation is this? Everyone is being punished no matter what they do. Lowering group counts for free users actually punishes creators because most of their group members suddenly have to cull 10 groups.
• The removal of quarterly payment is another subtle fee increase. Monthly works out more expensive, or you have to pay a chunk for yearly.
• Higher withdrawal fee. The economy is the main feature of this game at this point. Why would you disincentivise participation with a fee increase unless you really needed the money.

And it's fee increases for something people have been using for many years too. People have a grim acceptance of the fact the tech behind this game is never going to improve much.
No company ever admits that things are less than fantastic no matter what situation they're in. Most of the time their own employees are kept in the dark too. It would be doubly chaotic for SL if they said things were bad or, god forbid, they were shutting down. People would go insane and start ripping entire inventories of stuff. How it would happen is you would wake up one day and SL would be gone.

[Beeflin Grut]

19 hours ago, Grumpity Linden said:

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

That's what Grumpity Linden said! 

[Killer Perhaps]

1 minute ago, CoffeeDujour said:

Event listings are junk, spammed to hell and back, and for the most part simply ignored. The days off looking at events to see what whats going on in SL are as over as malls.

Oh I agree there it needs to be revamped in a huge way. I think a good start would be making escort and stripper places have their own category and if they are caught listing incorrectly, they cant post for a long time. I do use it occasionally to find new places though.

[DarkRavenWolfie]

30 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

What makes you say basics don't cover the costs of doing business in SL? Got anything to back that statement up with? 

I've owned and operated businesses in RL so I do know what it takes to run one and keep the doors open. I've also had a business in SL before and no one begrudged me being basic. I have to pay the same fees to LL for MP as premiums do, the same fees if I were to cash out, etc. And, unlike others, I do plan to have an inworld store again so I would be paying for the land even if it's indirectly. In the end LL still gets their cuts.

So what it boils down to for you is if someone is of low or fixed income they shouldn't be allowed to have an SL. That may not be what you are thinking but that is the end result. You know what that is called? Discrimination. Which is illegal in the US.

 

 

It very much does cover it likely

 

the keyword for businesses is to make profit, not to basically end up in zero sum.

[Selene Gregoire]

1 minute ago, DarkRavenWolfie said:

 

 

It very much does cover it likely

 

the keyword for businesses is to make profit, not to basically end up in zero sum.

If you had read my other posts you'd know I do not want the hassel of cashing out. All I want to do is break even so I can afford to stay in SL. You'd also know that I have owned successful businesses in RL so you aren't telling me anything I haven't known for a few decades.

[Coffee Pancake]

2 minutes ago, lambskin said:

It's better to pay attention to actions than words

Wanna show us on the doll where LL hurt you ?

2 minutes ago, lambskin said:

• Move to CDNs, a cost cutting measure

Or a massive performance boost that costs LL a boat load of cash month after month. The CDN is awesome.

2 minutes ago, lambskin said:

• Hastily make a new linden home area that looks like a turd on the map but it's pretty popular. Didn't convert enough people to premium though I guess.

So don't live there, don't hate people who do.

2 minutes ago, lambskin said:

• Punish free users, the majority of users, and make premium more expensive. At the same time. What kind of desperation is this? Everyone is being punished no matter what they do. Lowering group counts for free users actually punishes creators because most of their group members suddenly have to cull 10 groups.

Maybe we're all masochists, LL probably have stats for that.

2 minutes ago, lambskin said:

• The removal of quarterly payment is another subtle fee increase. Monthly works out more expensive, or you have to pay a chunk for yearly.

Yeah, this one is a shame.

[Prisqua Newall]

3 hours ago, Nextio said:

L$300 is peanuts for SL's economy.  That's the average price of hair these days.  Skins are usually 1200+.  Clothing and outfits are anywhere from 250-500.  Shoes are 500-800.  Makeup around 250+.  Now imagine if you want to buy furniture and accessories for your parcel of land.  You can forget about it.

The stipend has never adjusted to SL's ever changing economy, which isn't that desirable once you look at the prices of everything.  

Not only that. Watch creators raising their prices. Some of them already do it for no reasons, but now this will give them a reason. Already I received a notecard from a well-known saying "due to price increase to Premium memberships, the group will now have a 250L fee to join." Not sure what the price increase has to do with the group, since there is not even any advantages to be in the group (no gifts, no discounts), but anyway...

[MLALRS7044]

A suggestion to @Grumpity Linden, @Ebbe Linden, @Kat Linden, and folks at Linden Lab. 

This is a small revamp i am doing in what you guys proposed.

I will do a reverse calculation of the basic group limits, which should change. 

I will be also adding two times the amount of addition you guys want for the actual group memberships for premium users.

Instead of basic user group memberships being lowered by 7, The groups created by basic users should be raised by 7. And Premium users should have the groups raised by 20 instread of 10. 

The problem in SL is not the amount of groups in the residents' account, but the amount of issues the viewers have. SL needs to fix the lags in the viewers.

Plus also please, consider my suggestions as a plus in help to you guys.

Thank you so much for Reading.  

Best regards - Evelyn Colling.

 

Edited May 31, 2019 by MLALRS7044

[bigmoe Whitfield]

21 minutes ago, Callie Cline said:

no, actually it doesn't have to be that way. there are many many ways a business can increase revenue. people are upset about premium going up 3 dollars a month but what about people who could make 1000 a month? they went from paying 1 dollar (after conversion fees from lindens to dollars)  to then 10 dollars (max) to 25 dollars max to (per 1000) to now overnight 50 dollars????? that is INSANE. 

ebb indicated when he was talking about Sansar years ago predicting it's huge success, how they would give free land and make the money from the multi million dollar economy he expected to have. and charging fees to creators and making a lot of money of creators. so i think it's his core belief slowly being rolled over to SL because Sansar did not even come close to being a success. from what i read the peak users online last year was 140? or so at one time. 140???? that to me would be classified as an Epic fail. 

i LOVE second life. i've had amazing adventures in this virtual world since i joined, but charging content creators so so so much from one dollar to now 500 (per 10k) is CRAZY and it is really disrespectful. if there are not BIG creators there will NOT be little ones. the bigger ones set trends, make markets, and create reasons for people to engage and stay. their value can not be diminished. (as far as what they provide for residents to enjoy) 

anyway, i understand businesses need to occasionally raise prices however, moving servers to the cloud they SAVE money. why not pass that along to the creators? we have a ton of expenses to do business. in our particular business we pay for many outside servers, staff, and just countless amounts so another 2.5% increase in a bit over a year is startling. my guess is he's going to keep doing it to meet his value of a 20% or more amount. (he said something at an event about making money from the economy and how they had not done that well in SL. and how it should be like taxes... sigh. like taxes are something people really have a good feeling about. i would really ask them to reconsider this doubling for cashing out. i  have never in my life heard of any company increase anything so much ever. seems wrong. 

anyway... sometimes i wonder what they are thinking at LL. it's such a great place (second life) yet to a long time resident who saw it grow and then watch them make change after change that has made them lose so many people, i wonder why they keep making what seems like "mistakes" (if they want to grow). 

there is so much potential for growth and yet changes keep happening making it go the opposite way. i don't get it. 

i hope if any Lindens are reading this they don't take offense to it. i rarely if ever have posted in forums but it saddens me to hear of more people leaving now who give and contribute so so much. it's really sad.

 

 

Linden employee's have stated there are other fee's legal stuff they must pay to stay in compliance so there are fee's there too for them they have to pay.  I know, I know, I'm trying to always be the voice of reason and trying to help others understand that sometimes, Companies such as LL have to bite these hard bullets and push some of the fee's onto us the consumers, it's an evil I wish did not exist, but no company that deals in the volumes LL does, would be able to survive because of the fee's.   Now there are more fee's than what I've been listing too. 

[Callie Cline]

3 hours ago, Blueberryxx said:

Okay! I think they heard our feedback. Let's let them talk it over, think it over ❤️ We pitchforked enough for one day. 😈

i hope they do!!! really!! we always listen to our customers and have adjusted decisions we were off about when they spoke up, so who knows!

[bigmoe Whitfield]

2 minutes ago, MLALRS7044 said:

A suggestion to @Grumpity Linden, @Ebbe Linden, @Kat Linden, and folks at Linden Lab. 

This is a small revamp i am doing in what you guys proposed.

I will do a reverse calculation of the basic group limits, which should change. 

I will be also adding two times the amount of addition you guys want for the actual group memberships for premium users.

Instead of basic user group memberships being lowered by 7, The groups created by basic users should be raised by 7. And Premium users should have the groups raised by 20 instread of 10. 

The problem in SL is not the amount of groups in the residents' account, but the amount of issues the viewers have. SL needs to fix the lags in the viewers.

Plus also please, consider my suggestions as a plus in help to you guys.

Thank you so much for Reading.  

Best regards - Evelyn Colling.

 

They have stated the Groups are very hard on the backend, this is a issue that would require a full rebuild of the group functionality and they are not even sure that it can be fixed.  Groups were added I think in 2004ish, so looking at it with that much legacy coding, I'm not seeing an easy fix   so if they can figure out how to help their own systems then I'm all for it.