A brief note on pricing changes, which ran long.

[Fox Wijaya]

11 minutes ago, Kirakuma said:

the mainland is inferior land it's laggy broken buggy there's no reason to pay for premium to have access to property on that *****y land you should rent from an estate owner

nonsense

[Kirakuma]

1 minute ago, Fox Wijaya said:

nonsense

a private region club with a hundred people in it runs better than a Mainland parcel empty

a private region could load practically instantly the mainland takes 45 minutes sometimes to load anything

[Sarazan]

You want feedback from an actual paying subscriber? Fine, here's all I know, and that's there's no way we're paying 30%+ more annually for the current levels of poor performance and lag. Scripts don't work, attachments become stuck and you have to relog just to swap hairs or shoebases... I mean come on, seriously? Changing shoebases? This is the great Cloud improvement you want us to pay for?

How about you try fixing it and making it worth paying more for, and then I and my roommate might consider renewing, but not at this rate, and you can forget the grampa'd in one more year at the old rates pricing deal offer you danged, another year of this poor performance at the old price is no longer worth that subscription rate either.

So, let's do the math here, shall we? The totals in this household go from $79 x 2 yearly earned by you to $99 x 2 lost by you  because you want to charge more for even poorer still performance. Sounds about right to me, I wonder how many more feel exactly the same and will do the same as us?

Here's a thought: try giving us what we're paying for instead of asking for more. You have just lost 2 loyal paying customers who were willing to be patient with the performance issues, but not after this slap in the face. Not now.

[Fox Wijaya]

8 minutes ago, Sarazan said:

2 loyal paying customers

being loyal comes from 2 sides, you only want it when you have profit of it, that's no loyalty

 

9 minutes ago, Sarazan said:

from an actual paying subscriber

ah ok... nobody else here pays  ...

[Fox Wijaya]

12 minutes ago, Kirakuma said:

a private region club with a hundred people in it runs better than a Mainland parcel empty

a private region could load practically instantly the mainland takes 45 minutes sometimes to load anything

without detailed specs of your machine, connection, settings and location this statement means not a lot.

btw .... Clubs with 100 people will rezz nowhere fast.

[Cindy Evanier]

3 minutes ago, Fox Wijaya said:

being loyal comes from 2 sides, you only want it when you have profit of it, that's no loyalty

 

ah ok... nobody else here pays  ...

I do x 2   and still happy with the increase since there hasn't been 1 for the 10 plus years I was here and lots of improvements in that time especially double land allowance. 

(but you know this and I know where your comment was aimed but not everyone gets sarcasm ❄️❄️)

[Alazarin Mondrian]

1 hour ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

I am a live musician. It may appear that our costs are low compared to those of creating and marketing content but compared to our income that's not the case. Items on the marketplace can sell 24/7, If I'm not online, on stage and performing, I'm not earning any $L at all. Preparing a one hour set (which I can hopefully then use at several venues) implies a couple of hours of rehearsal before I ever fire up the stream. I pay for my streaming service inworld but all my other costs are RL - fresh strings, ordinary wear on my gear etc. Other than transportation my costs to play a SL set are identical to those of playing the same set in RL.The income is a fraction. This is not because venue owners are stingy, it's that they simply cannot afford to pay close to what I'd charge in RL. The vast majority of SL venues operate really close to the wire - just like their RL counterparts. Many can only afford to have performers play for tips, those that can afford to pay can usually only offer around 1000 per hour. Yes, there are places that can offer more, but they are a tiny minority and competition to get slots there is fierce, particularly if your musical genre is itself a minority interest. Currently, my SL existence is self-sustaining "plus a little bit" - but in all honesty in an hour playing on a street corner I can make close to three times what I'd realize from that same hour in SL. The comparison with an hour at even the seediest RL venue doesn't even exist, it's so far out. When your margins are that small even a relatively modest increase in how much LL siphon off from your income becomes truly significant.

I'm not claiming that these increases will put me in the RL poorhouse. I make almost all my RL income in RL, but might they cause my SL income to no longer cover my expenses as a SL performer? Yes, they might. And this is where things get problematic, because while I do wish to continue to be a part of this community and to continue contributing to it, any musician will tell you that for the most part it's not a "financially secure lifestyle" - even the tiny profit from playing in SL helps. But if it were to turn into an equally tiny loss, I guarantee that I'd not be alone in questioning whether to continue.

Quote

As a fellow live music performer, I can relate to the points you raise. Live music in SL pays a pittance and, as someone on a fixed income, I use my SL earnings to help cover my costs: audio stream rental, nice shiny props and instruments, clothes, mesh uploads etc. The new premium price increases could well end up pricing me out of being a land-owning performer in SL with their own venue [something I did to get away from the gig-circuit rat race as well as indulging my inner lego-freak].

I could carry on as a landless performer hustling gigs at SL venues but that's a whole level of runaround I would really rather avoid. I hope you don't give up and find a way to continue performing your music in SL. Us musicians may not be able to provide the visual shiny that content creators are able to provide, but without us SL entertainment would only be DJ's and their canned music playlists.

 

Edited June 2, 2019 by Alazarin Mondrian
clarification

[Alazarin Mondrian]

34 minutes ago, Fox Wijaya said:

without detailed specs of your machine, connection, settings and location this statement means not a lot.

btw .... Clubs with 100 people will rezz nowhere fast.

Yes, The Ark and Yiff for starters. Both are located on estate sims and the first few minutes after you land at either venue are spent looking at grey avatars and clouds of mis-shapen mesh clothes and body parts while you wait for things to load. And that's on a 70mb download connection with an i7 CPU amd GTX1050ti grafix card. Fun fun fun!

Edited June 2, 2019 by Alazarin Mondrian

[Polymath Snuggler]

6 hours ago, Callie Cline said:

yes, that's true however we've not raised out prices ever. in over 8 years. we're mindful of listening to our customers and know it's tight for them. also, moving stuff to the cloud has actually lowered server costs (from what i have been told, if that's true) 

the higher rates are (from what i've heard) something they've wanted to do because other 3d sites that sell content make 30% of what people sell and they feel they were too low. (if that's true from the articles and interviews i've read) 

however, that is not a good reason, just because you can doesn't mean one should. especially when they are not apples to apples. i can understand feeling like "wow we could make more" and being tempted, but there seems to be a big disconnect from people who are creators or at least that's the feeling and they are customers as well. 

also, bitter pills are much easier to swallow with better communication and not an annoucement with a short window. when it went up from 25 dollars max to 250, we had about 4 or 5 months to adjust budgets, etc. this was a bigger increase with little warning. one wonders why it wasn't given with more regard to the impact it would have. especially since they said it was a bitter pill. 

anyway, we'll see what they say, and being mindful of how you raise prices (so drastically) and not communicate with the ones it will effect doesn't promote a good feeling. i just really love SL and think it's an untapped place in the potential it could have, and just think that there are so many ways to increase revenues besides this way. it's basically doubling their revenue in a month from those who work here. that's a LOT. with us not getting anything in return (at least not said in the way it was communicated) so it seems greedy and not a fair way to do business. and i hope they will consider this and not take it as people whining.  

thanks for your comment! and yes, we can raise our prices, our business model has been delivering more than we promise and increasing value without hiking prices. 

take care

i think this will be my last post til we hear back!  

"We've not raised prices in 8 years" is the crux of your problem.

In the last 8 years the price of literally everything else in the world has gone up.  Since about the year 2000, the purchasing power of money has dropped over 50% according to a quick google search.

Quote

Therefore, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, $20 in 2000 has the same "purchasing power" as $30.66 in 2019 (in the CPI category of Food).

That also means the cost of electricity, which keeps servers running has gone up.  The cost of compliance work with all of the new copyright laws has gone way up. The cost of running SL has simply gone up.  (Migrating things to the cloud doesn't actually reduce costs, as you've been told, they stay about the same, and might actually increase, but it also provides flexibility and robustness to the system, which is why they're doing it) It was ( and still is ) clear from the amount of abandoned land on SL that land pricing was simply not working at the price points that were set.  So they had to reduce them, shift that economy over to a different model or I'm absolutely dead certain that there would be no more SL in 5 years time.  At least not one that is owned by the Lab.  My biggest fear isn't some price increase, my biggest fear is SL becoming insolvent as a business venture, and then having the Lab totally bought out, wholly by a different company that has no idea what the product actually does, which then decides to 'fix' SL to become a profitable enterprise with no concern for the actual user base, followed very swiftly by the shuttering of the entire operation, because we all know that would never actually work.

 

So yes, you might need to raise prices on your products, maybe not across the board, but on some new releases, etc.  or on your SL Marketplace listings etc.  Sadly the world changes, and everyone, the lab, us, and your customers will have to adapt.

😩

[Da5id Weatherwax]

11 minutes ago, Alazarin Mondrian said:

As a fellow live music performer, I can relate to the points you raise. Live music in SL pays a pittance and, as someone on a fixed income, I use my SL earnings to help cover my costs: audio stream rental, nice shiny props and instruments, clothes, mesh uploads etc. The new premium price increases could well end up pricing me out of being a land-owning performer in SL with their own venue [something I did to get away from the gig-circuit rat race as well as indulging my inner lego-freak].

I could carry on as a landless performer hustling gigs at SL venues but that's a whole level of runaround I would really rather avoid. I hope you don't give up and find a way to continue performing your music in SL. Us musicians may not be able to provide the visual shiny that content creators are able to provide, but without us SL entertainment would only be DJ's and their canned music playlists.

DJs keep the clubs open so that we can play there, and a good one is WAY more than a "canned playlist" - They may not have rehearsal time to consider (but only "may not" - a DJ who live-mixes is constantly practicing their art) but they put in a comparable amount of time assembling their sets as we do. But the fact remains that they can go for hours  and - if they can get them - pull sets effectively back to back. If I tried even getting close to the schedule of a successful SL DJ I'd have trashed my voice within a week and wouldn't be able to perform anywhere, RL or SL, for a month! They also have one other advantage over a live performer - with a decent set of cans they can perform "RL silent" and not care if their set is scheduled for what might be an unsocial hour in their local TZ. If we have neighbors, we can't do that. They make as much as we do an hour, but can put in a LOT more hours earning!

I'll support them to my last virtual breath, though, because if it wasn't for DJ's there would be no SL music scene at all and the virtual world be significantly lesser thereby.

For my part, for as long as I can keep covering my expenses I'll keep playing in SL. There is nothing like the communities and audiences you find here anywhere else online and it's a pleasure being part of it. The margin is already razor-thin though and any increase in costs is worrisome.

[Alazarin Mondrian]

1 minute ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

DJs keep the clubs open so that we can play there, and a good one is WAY more than a "canned playlist"...

I'll support them to my last virtual breath, though, because if it wasn't for DJ's there would be no SL music scene at all and the virtual world be significantly lesser thereby.

For my part, for as long as I can keep covering my expenses I'll keep playing in SL. There is nothing like the communities and audiences you find here anywhere else online and it's a pleasure being part of it. The margin is already razor-thin though and any increase in costs is worrisome.

Oh, of course. I go to plenty of clubs and events with DJ's and have a great time. I was just banging the drum for live music performers [maybe a bit too forcefully ;-)]

Like you, I will continue to keep on playing in SL for the foreseeable future. In my case it was SL that got me out of my pit pit of burnout and back to playing and writing music... a debt that I repay by basing my entire music identity and existence on my little band of alts that I have created in SL.

[Madison Heartsong]

What I think people are missing is that this is not an incremental price incrwase, as it might appear at first, but a huge increase percentagewise-- when you consider how much we will have to pay on top of the worth of the Linden allowance.

Raising annual prices from $72/year to $99 (basically $100)-- that's still really big, over a 33% increase-- but it's even a lot bigger, because it was about $10 per year counting the value of the L$ allowance, and now, it's $37 per year counting the allowance.  So it isn't really a little over 33%:  It's 250%, in the real cost.  That is exorbitant.  make it actually a 33% increase after the Linden allowance by giving us most (not all) of the extra cost back in extra L$ allowance and it's reasonable.  A 250% increase though is exorbitant.

And make some of the miney back by not cutting full region fees.  This seems designed to have less ssmall-user land owning and more land rentals-- the opposite direction the great change to 1024 sq m went.  It seems to be driving toward fewer subscriptions but more cost per subscription.  It's the exact opposite direction they should have been heading, trying to get more people to subscribe at the same price or even at an actual 33% increase (but not an actual 250% increase).

Meanwhile, again in LL seeming to want less small land ownership and more rentals (where you're at the mecy of a landlord) they gave one group a price cut, the full region owners.  That will, I'm sure, lower rental costs.  But those of us who want true control over our land got badly screwed.

[Theresa Tennyson]

Some of this math is beginning to look familiar:

http://shelsilverstein.yolasite.com/smart.php

[Vichonette Constantine]

On 5/30/2019 at 5:04 AM, kiramanell said:

On the whole groups thingy, personally I didn't need an increase to 70. In fact, one could argue that doing so only encourages 'laziness' in ppl (as in them not feeling the need to clean out old, unused groups). 60 really was already a lot.

Sure, 60 is a lot if you're not a creator, aren't involved in things like dance troupes and model agencies and events and only have stores and clubs that you frequent.  However, for those of us with businesses, we need groups for advertising, groups for our stores, groups for our other business contacts, and those 60 groups fill up fast.  I'm constantly having to delete groups I PAID to join, because I need the space for another model agency, or I got my store in an event and I need their group in order to put my booth together.  Sure, I could add another avatar solely for sending notices and switch my advertising groups over to that avatar, but wouldn't that be just as heavy on the SL backside as those 10 extra group slots, if not more so?

I'm ok with the increased premium cost.  I'm even ok with the increase in the other fees.  What I'm not ok with is being forced to give up my rather spacious current Linden home for one of those new matchboxes.  Not everyone in SL is the size of a matchstick, and some of us prefer open space to all those tiny rooms in those little houses.  How about offering a three-story home with no interior walls at all, so we can customize it to suit our individual needs?

[Polymath Snuggler]

@Madison531 I don't get it, you remember that they doubled your total land you can own *for free* and you're upset that estates are getting a cut?

I mean ~ I get it, loss aversion.

 

But if you wanted a 1024 parcel a year ago, you had to pay TIER ~ which is like 5$ USD / month.... . MONTH, not year.

Premium includes all sorts of other perks too ~ over and above "free" parcels, albeit most of them are useless, but still.  Value is value.

 

[Fox Wijaya]

38 minutes ago, Madison531 said:

$37 per year

37/12 = 3.08 ... for a free place to put your home, or even including your home, where are we talking about?
The only problem i see in it that it's pretty steep to pay that fee upfront for quite some people.

[kiramanell]

17 minutes ago, polysail said:

@Madison531 I don't get it, you remember that they doubled your total land you can own *for free* and you're upset that estates are getting a cut?

 

You know what I would like? To be able to rent an adjacent houseboat plot (when vacant). Then I could use its prim allowance to have a root sit on the other parcel, with linked stuffz overlapping my main boat area, so as to effectively have doubled my prims.  Never going to happen, of course.

[Madison Heartsong]

8 minutes ago, polysail said:

@Madison531 I don't get it, you remember that they doubled your total land you can own *for free* and you're upset that estates are getting a cut?

 

 

 

They get a cut, I get an increase.  And when we did get the extra land, they got a cut then too.  But if I were getting a cut, or more free land with membership, then fine they can get another cut too.  But since I'm getting a 250% increase, they shouldn't get a cut that I'm helping to pay for.  LL is pushing land baron/rent when they should do the opposite (which the increase to 1024 did) and encourage more to be members and own small parcels and less land baron/renting.

7 minutes ago, Fox Wijaya said:

37/12 = 3.08 ... for a free place to put your home, or even including your home, where are we talking about?
The only problem i see in it that it's pretty steep to pay that fee upfront for quite some people.

The upfront cost is worse than meets the eye, because it means taking a risk that things on sl will turn bad and you decide to leave, and then youve wasted (the rest of) the year's fee.  Quarterly was a good compromise for that, but for some reason LL decided they hate quarterly so are increasing that more than anything else, and new users can't even get it.

In terms of cost counting the L$ stipend, then yes it's still a better deal than renting in almost all cases.  But I tend to see that as a goal of LL, listening to land barons and wanting to make owning small parcels not as good a deal compared to renting.

[Fox Wijaya]

Just now, Madison531 said:

 it means taking a risk

stepping out of your bed in the morning, travel to work, and get hit by a comet is also a risk, but i still go to work every morning.
 

[Polymath Snuggler]

7 minutes ago, Fox Wijaya said:

37/12 = 3.08 ... for a free place to put your home, or even including your home, where are we talking about?
The only problem i see in it that it's pretty steep to pay that fee upfront for quite some people.

Actually when you factor in the 3.5% transaction fee from selling L$ it's more like 39$ / year , which comes out to be roughly 208 L$  per week for a 1024 parcel on the mainland, which still has parity with private island rental rates, in fact it beats them easily when you look at actual offered rental prices.

179$ USD for a grandfathered region gives you 65536 square meters, which gives you 64 1024 parcels if you rent them out, meaning that if you rent a 1024 parcel at COST ( no markup whatsoever ) on a private island you're still paying 174$ L / wk without any markup.  That's on a region without the prim allotment increased for 30$ a month extra.  That change raises it to 204 L$ per month ( again AT COST )

 

 But good luck finding someone who isn't taking a percentage to cover fallow land in their region...  In fact most people who are renting out parcels, are renting the region that they're renting out from a land holding co, which means that you're paying a price twice-marked up.

[Lindal Kidd]

1 hour ago, Madison531 said:

...Meanwhile, again in LL seeming to want less small land ownership and more rentals (where you're at the mecy of a landlord) they gave one group a price cut, the full region owners.  That will, I'm sure, lower rental costs.  But those of us who want true control over our land got badly screwed.

As a landowner, I can agree with your desire to not have a middleman and have full control.  As a landlord, I sort of resent being viewed as some kind of Simon Legree who has her tenants at her mercy and can whip them whenever she likes.  I, and most landlords in SL, do a lot to accommodate our tenants' wishes.

[Lindal Kidd]

2 hours ago, Kirakuma said:

the mainland is inferior land it's laggy broken buggy there's no reason to pay for premium to have access to property on that *****y land you should rent from an estate owner

This is simply untrue.  There are places on the Mainland that are laggy, or broken, or buggy.  And there are Private Estate regions that are, too.  Just as there are both Mainland and Private Estate places that are beautiful, and that have good performance.

[Madison Heartsong]

Just now, Lindal Kidd said:

As a landowner, I can agree with your desire to not have a middleman and have full control.  As a landlord, I sort of resent being viewed as some kind of Simon Legree who has her tenants at her mercy and can whip them whenever she likes.  I, and most landlords in SL, do a lot to accommodate our tenants' wishes.

 

I know that landownees in general are a mix and there are many that do a lot of very nice things for their tenants.  I don't mesan to imply they tend to love to abuse power or anything.  My big issue is that LL seems to be accomodating landowners at all others' expense.

[Monderas Bristol]

23 hours ago, LeeeBlack said:

"Where is the compensation?"

Compensation for a free account - Zero, you're welcome. Stop being so stupid.

I understand content creators  might have some justification for complaining about fee increases, but for the account increases?, this is the first time in many years.

 

[Polymath Snuggler]

19 minutes ago, Madison531 said:

 

I know that landownees in general are a mix and there are many that do a lot of very nice things for their tenants.  I don't mesan to imply they tend to love to abuse power or anything.  My big issue is that LL seems to be accomodating landowners at all others' expense.

I just posted the math as to why this statement is completely incorrect ~