How aggressive should Linden Lab be in converting residents to premium?

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Title pretty much sums it up, how do you feel about the whole basic vs premium thing?

Should Linden Lab be more aggressive in getting basic users to upgrade?

[Adam Spark]

They should aggressively advertise. There should be feature changes periodically to make it worth paying for.

Here are my beefs though.

They need to be careful with a couple things. They need to stop punishing basic users for not being interested. Waving a proverbial carrot in my face is one thing. Telling me I can no longer do a, b, or c, whether altogether or to the extent I previously could, needs to stop. Like, yesterday. Decide on (and update, obviously) a baseline for basic users and commit to not scaling back on it. Even if I get an improved service at a slower rate. Just stop depreciating my service.

They (and some premium members) need to realize also that there is much less disconnect between a basic user and a premium user than it seems they believe. Basic users are not entirely freeloaders. We buy Linden dollars. We put them back in the system when we buy goods and services in-world. We work for Linden dollars and provide goods and services. Not patting myself on the back by any stretch here, but I host events, run a venue, and sell clothing. I've been earning Ls and putting them back into the system for over a decade. Basic users are contributors to the economics of Second Life, and dare I suggest SL would be dead without us.

They also must realize that the way we are treated indirectly impacts premium users. Take their recent plan to reduce group space for basic. They went back on that, and any premium user who owns a group designed to attract the public at large should be thankful they did.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Adam Spark

[KanryDrago]

1 hour ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Title pretty much sums it up, how do you feel about the whole basic vs premium thing?

Should Linden Lab be more aggressive in getting basic users to upgrade?

No they shouldn't. Try an exert pressure and many basic users will just walk. I am one of them. Premium just has no attraction for me and I would be merely paying it over and above what I already pay in buying linden dollars. It would be merely a 100$ tax on me playing sl for no gain.

I dont want to live on mainland

I dont go places that are so packed that priority access makes a difference

I dont need more groups

I dont want linden gifts

The stipend is a drop in the ocean for what I spend

[Alwin Alcott]

1 hour ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Title pretty much sums it up, how do you feel about the whole basic vs premium thing?

Should Linden Lab be more aggressive in getting basic users to upgrade?

it's not populair.. and won't get that status ever , but i think there should be a bigger difference between basic and premiums. For many the only reason is to get a linden home. The extented support and stipend isn't really triggering the enthousiasm.
I'm not saying there should be taken things away from basics, but for premiums the addition on the basic pack is a bit thin. If you don't want a house there's not really a lot where you need a premium subscription for.

A huge misser was the latest actions around the new Linden Home .. i think they really shot their own foot with the suggestion for new Linden Homes and go premium. It's simply not there, so stop promoting it. It wouldn't surprise me many won't renew after the current subscription ends.

I would say, LL add something contrstuctive and really interesting to the premiums ... make it true first, not only promess ... and than start a good promotion to get people level up.
No.. not the plans for super premium, but the normal ones. The Super is only meant to rake more cash in, dropping the term in public to make people nosy/interested, but there's nothing constructive told yet.; could be this, could be that... come with something real.
 

[Richardus Raymaker]

More pressure dies not work if the perks are bad and the price goes up. For me, if linden lab not gives a good perk like a homedteadh sum in your 99$ premium. It's bye bye premium.

Premium just add nothing useful.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

A healthy number of yearly renewed subscriptions is good for the safety of the business as a whole, it's predictable income for LL.

1 minute ago, Richardus Raymaker said:

More pressure dies not work if the perks are bad and the price goes up. For me, if linden lab not gives a good perk like a homedteadh sum in your 99$ premium. It's bye bye premium.

That's the thing, the next killer feature they add should probably be gated to premium accounts. Mesh was the last one and they really missed an opportunity there (they missed a lot of things when they introduced mesh but well...)

Edited July 8, 2019 by Kyrah Abattoir

[KanryDrago]

1 hour ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

A healthy number of yearly renewed subscriptions is good for the safety of the business as a whole, it's predictable income for LL.

That's the thing, the next killer feature they add should probably be gated to premium accounts. Mesh was the last one and they really missed an opportunity there (they missed a lot of things when they introduced mesh but well...)

Good idea and us freeloading basics will listen to glee to the whine of the creators who want to sell things incorporating this new killer feature and realise they are fighting over about 10%* or so of SL's population as customers.

I am sure the Lab will also welcome the drop in income from freeloading basics who can't match the premiums if the feature is that killer. For example if they had gated mesh to premium and we had to use standard avi's how many do you think would still be hanging around.

We may not be predictable income but we are income for the lab and I wouldnt be surprised if over half the lab income is derived from basic players via rental payments

*figure is anecdotal but probably reasonably close based on people I have met over the years and how many are premium

[steeljane42]

44 minutes ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

That's the thing, the next killer feature they add should probably be gated to premium accounts.

And why's that? So basic users, even ones who own a region, would feel bad and punished for not being interested in premium as well as feeling obligated to pay for it? That sure is gonna "help" already declining userbase /s

Happy users = spending and active users, it's always the case. Gate content/awesome features behind the paywall and instead of thinking "yeah, that's it! now I'm going to pay for sure' they'll just reduce their time using the service and spendings. No one likes to feel like a 2nd class citizen, especially in the virtual world as many already deal with it in rl.

We already had this discussion on the forums earlier and I still think LL could try to introduce more premium types. One without land and some extra features (free/cheaper texture/mesh upload for builders or bloggers for example), maybe other one without tier and even more group slots (150-200?) for those who are shopping addicted. Although I understand that too many options can also have negative effect, people get lost of what they should get for themselves and end up not getting anything at all. I also saw that suggestion a few times in other parts of the forum, but maybe allow premiums to buy a homestead directly from LL without having to have the full region first. It would be a nice feature.

So don't think LL should be aggressive in "premium pushing", especially via gating new features behind it. They could add a few more premium account services, though. Like the fabled name change could be heavily discounted for premiums or even have free one (each year maybe), maybe even some kind of an inventory transfer (also once a year) and stuff like that.

[Alwin Alcott]

11 minutes ago, steeljane42 said:

And why's that? So basic users, even ones who own a region, would feel bad and punished for not being interested in premium as well as feeling obligated to pay for it? That sure is gonna "help" already declining userbase

it is about premium, nobody here talks about taking things away from basics. But seems to be as always, the underbelly feelings that some basics have to be less resident can't be healed by anything.

[KanryDrago]

Just now, Alwin Alcott said:

it is about premium, nobody here talks about taking things away from basics. But seems to be as always, the underbelly feelings that some basics have to be less resident can't be healed by anything.

By the very definition gating some new feature behind premium and saying basics can't have it is excluding them. There is a huge difference between perks and not having access to certain world features

[Alwin Alcott]

1 minute ago, KanryDrago said:

By the very definition gating some new feature behind premium and saying basics can't have it is excluding them. There is a huge difference between perks and not having access to certain world features

and why is it bad to exclude some features for basics? For me it's pretty normal you can't have the same things as people who do pay for the club.
 

[KanryDrago]

6 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

and why is it bad to exclude some features for basics? For me it's pretty normal you can't have the same things as people who do pay for the club.
 

Lets put some figures up as some premiums seems to feel they keep the lab afloat so they should get loaded down with goodies

In another thread people came to a fairly well agreed estimate of 100,000 premiums.

100,000 x 72 = 7,200,000 income for the lab

Last year according to the report here 

https://readwrite.com/2011/08/08/second_life_makes_100m_a_year_in_revenue/

the lab had 100,000,000 income

your premium fees are a mere 7% the rest comes from people paying tier, merchant fees, cash out fees,market place fees etc

all of which basics contribute to, maybe even more when you consider basics dont have a free home

So get off your high horse about how much the lab needs you. If everyone dropped premium the lab would still make a profit. If all the basics disappear because you feel they are free loaders however the Lab is going to be in trouble

So kindly take your premium sense of entitlement and shove it

[Alwin Alcott]

1 minute ago, KanryDrago said:

So kindly take your premium sense of entitlement and shove it

yep... clearly the same disease

a basic isn't less than a premium, it's just a different subscription. NOBODY says a basic adds no value to SL, nobody says a premium is more.
It's somehow a feeling of guilt that some basics have, for no reason at all. Shove your calculations in a place where you wish my premium subscription

btw.. i'm not premium.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

NOBODY says a basic adds no value to SL, nobody says a premium is more.

Nobody? I’ve seen some crazy arguments.

[steeljane42]

14 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

it is about premium, nobody here talks about taking things away from basics. But seems to be as always, the underbelly feelings that some basics have to be less resident can't be healed by anything.

Gating new features and wasting dev. time making those features with "premium only" in mind is taking away from basics too. LL already are painfully slow with introducing any new features, see how long it takes them to make EEP, BoM, name change etc to happen. Bento and animesh weren't fast either. So I think it's not okay if LL spends a year+ on something "for the chosen few", while the rest get nothing, even if they invest a lot of money.

[KanryDrago]

16 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

yep... clearly the same disease

a basic isn't less than a premium, it's just a different subscription. NOBODY says a basic adds no value to SL, nobody says a premium is more.
It's somehow a feeling of guilt that some basics have, for no reason at all. Shove your calculations in a place where you wish my premium subscription

btw.. i'm not premium.

 

Some people say exactly that, you yourself are arguing that basics shouldn't get nice things because only premiums deserve them and if you are not premium then that is just a wierd stance. You can ignore numbers all you like but the fact remains the Lab cannot afford to annoy basics to the point they leave in large numbers. If you don't think there are some premiums with a sense of entitlement about it then you certainly didnt read the thread about changes

[Alwin Alcott]

4 minutes ago, KanryDrago said:

. If you don't think there are some premiums with a sense of entitlement about it then you certainly didnt read the thread about changes

i'm not thinking that there aren't premiums with that attitude .. but also not thinking some basics have a weird sense of injustice for not getting the same as premiums.

[KanryDrago]

Just now, Alwin Alcott said:

i'm not thinking that there aren't premiums with that attitude .. but also not thinking some basics have a weird sense of injustice for not getting the same as premiums.

If its a major world feature like mesh hell yes, if its perks the premiums get then hell no couldn't care less

[Kyrah Abattoir]

46 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

it is about premium, nobody here talks about taking things away from basics. But seems to be as always, the underbelly feelings that some basics have to be less resident can't be healed by anything.

I don't hold a weird hatred for basic accounts.

If there are no reasons to upgrade, then why would anyone do so? And unless you want to own mainland or need an experience key there is currently no compelling reason to tier up.

If most people don't care about any of the premium perks, it just means that they are bad perks.

4 hours ago, Adam Spark said:

They need to stop punishing basic users for not being interested.

There is a very fine line between adding benefits to premiums and punishing basics, and funny enough it's usually when the benefit is a must have (which they all should be or what would be the point?)

Edited July 8, 2019 by Kyrah Abattoir

[bigmoe Whitfield]

I will glady take premium if it included me being able to purchase at some point a life time account, where I can grab a 4096 of mainland and be happy wehre I can play house and pester my friends and just build without restrictions.

[suzyst]

Aggressive marketing doesn't work, it just annoys those who can't afford or don't want what's being sold and sometimes those who have already bought the product. I'm premium cos the stipend and the linden home almost pay for cost. I don't consider myself superior to basics and I'm sure they don't either. While it's a choice and the perks make it worthwhile I'll probably continue, the moment it looks like it's penalising basics or making them second class citizens in SL I'll drop it.

[Orwar]

   I've got two premium subscriptions running, the one I have on Orwar is basically just for my home - could I be bothered to move, I would cancel that subscription as I receive next to no benefits that are in any way useful; full zones I can do without (and if I want to get into an event, a little bit of patience and a TP hammer goes a long way), the stipend I could just directly buy the L$ I want when I want it, the group cap - well, I've never been close to the basic account group cap since there are so few creators whose business I want to follow that make men's apparel. Premium sandboxes, well, there are public ones so I don't really see the point.

   On Neph, the group cap increase was probably the driving factor, as well as getting into shopping events easier, and I figured I might as well just grab a quarter of premium before the price was increased. It was a slightly impulsive move, and whether I'll remain a premium member after my quarter runs out I'll decide on when I get closer to the renewal date.

   Currently, it feels as if the premium benefits are pretty much negligible - to me, the price isn't prohibitive so I might as well. Does it feel worth it? Meh. I'd rather keep up with my favorite creators through Flickr (and honestly, a lot of the groups is just to be notified of a new release - which contains a link to Flickr, which is where I'll go to get my first impression of the product), and I strongly dislike the way events work (there are people there, why does there have to be people there?!) since it's generally just a lag-fest due to horrendous optimisation and people with enough script memory to accommodate an artificial intelligence capable of genuine creativity and empathy. I haven't even grabbed a home with her, and I barely use my own home since my partners and I have more mainland plots between us than we could ever need anyway.

   I don't have any ideas for what premium benefits could be introduced to make it more worthwhile or attractive, to be honest. There's of course one big one which I haven't addressed, because - well, I've used it once in over eight years; live chat support. It's nice to know it's there, but I can't really perceive an issue where I might use it again. If I have an issue with a product, I contact its creator. If I have an issue with the grid being wonky, I check the grid status or the forums and usually find that it's already being investigated. If I experience bugs, there's years and years of forum threads that can be dug up to figure out what's wrong - and I've been in SL long enough how to debug many types of issues on my own, and if all else fails it's usually answered pretty quickly on the forums anyway.

   I think that the premium membership offers a pretty broad array of benefits as it is, but none of them feel vital. If I just want one of the features, such as having a home, I'd be better off directly buying the L$ to rent land through one of the many estate barons. Store groups, well, why should I pay someone to keep up with their releases anyway? I follow most of the creators that consistently release stuff that appeals to me on Flickr anyway, and more often than not I see the product reveal there before I see the notice for it in-world. Should LL try pushing premium harder? Maybe, but finding a feature to add which would be universally desired feels difficult. Raising the stipend or land allowance, well, we've had several posts in various threads that check out the math on that and the current stipend on its own is pretty generous as it is; raising it might give LL more consistency in income than people sporadically buying L$ when they feel like it, but it might just end up lowering the value of L$ as a currency as it would accommodate using alts like passive gold farmers (you already sort of can, if you can be bothered to and successfully buy a plot of mainland that you rent out for a decent weekly fee).

[Fionalein]

4 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

 No.. not the plans for super premium, but the normal ones. The Super is only meant to rake more cash in, dropping the term in public to make people nosy/interested, but there's nothing constructive told yet.; could be this, could be that... come with something real.  

I still think they didn't think this one through. Right now Premium is "top of the food chain" - sure we can add on Tier and rent private islands. But basically the premium users are treated equal on most accounts. I bet there is a significant amount of premium subscribers which just are for a feeling of superiority - take away that superiority and replace it by mediocricy by placing something above it and those people might rethink their investment. Think the kitty might be wrong about this? Just look at the photography, fashionista and blogger scenes to get an estimate how important prestige in current SL society is.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Fionalein

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

6 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Should Linden Lab be more aggressive in getting basic users to upgrade?

Why do you ask?

[Solar Legion]

19 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

If most people don't care about any of the premium perks, it just means that they are bad perks.

There is a very fine line between adding benefits to premiums and punishing basics, and funny enough it's usually when the benefit is a must have (which they all should be or what would be the point?)

No. Wrong.

It means that they are perks that do not appeal to most people - that is all it means.

No perk in something like Second Life should ever be a "must have" and amusingly enough there are even free to play games that follow this same train of thought.

To make it quite plain: Perks should be just that - perks. Nice things to have that in no way impair enjoyment of the software if you do not have them.

That is not a point I am willing to "discuss" either.

Oh yes and this is coming from someone who went Premium some time back and for whom those perks are useful.

Edited July 9, 2019 by Solar Legion
Wording change