Cost Of Name Changes Out Of The Bag

[Wulfie Reanimator]

16 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

Personally, having been around when you just automatically got a last name as part of signing up (though with crappy choices), that too would seem pretty shifty to me. They still use last names as part of the system, just with no choice. I would be like, "Wait, I have to take Premium and pay $40 to get a name??? Wow, what else am I going to have to pay for?" I have to admit I say this in total ignorance of other games/online world experiences and stuff, probably all of them require a subscription or something. Times do change, I know, but wow, this seems pretty parsimonious. Of course, noone has to engage in SL, and in fact, the vast majority of people are making just that choice. All this kind of stuff doesn't seem conducive to changing that, though.

Generally speaking, LL's approach is not very different from the norm besides the price.

On platforms where you can change your name for free (eg. Steam), it's just a visual alias while your underlying login name cannot be changed. In other cases (such as a lot of MMO roleplaying games), your login name cannot be changed but you can pay to have your character's name changed.

For a little more relevant example, there's IMVU. Free accounts have a tacked-on name so everybody's called "Guest_username." You have to buy the VIP subscription to get it removed. Name change has to be bought separately ($13) though.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[CaerolleClaudel]

27 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Generally speaking, LL's approach is not very different from the norm besides the price.

On platforms where you can change your name for free (eg. Steam), it's just a visual alias while your underlying login name cannot be changed. In other cases (such as a lot of MMO roleplaying games), your login name cannot be changed but you can pay to have your character's name changed.

For a little more relevant example, there's IMVU. Free accounts have a tacked-on name so everybody's called "Guest_username." You have to buy the VIP subscription to get it removed. Name change has to be bought separately ($13) though.

I am curious, in those other environments, I am guessing you only have one name, rather than first and last?

It seems SL made a lot of bad choices back at the beginning that restrict what they can do now, but it seems to me it would have been better if we had a login ID such at email, and then a separate username, with the actual account info being passed to in-world merchants or whoever as part of being logged into SL. The MP would seem to be easy there, you have to log into MP once for all the places you would buy from anyway, so just use your account login instead of your inworld username. I guess I don't know the details of all this, but seems like it could be more flexible. OTOH, off the top of my head, I can't think of any other accounts I have that let me change my username, either, so perhaps that wouldn't help. It seems like it would be simple, but maybe not.

Who know, it's just this whole name thing seems a mess, and made worse by not being able to have spaces (and maybe not even underscores or periods?) in usernames. And while display names may help a little, they are implemented in a halfway, haphazard manner and don't show up a lot of the places I feel they need to (for example, in the Forum, or in-world People searches). That is why I just finally gave up and started a new account with the two names I want squished together as one name. That is as close as I will ever get with LL.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

25 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

I am curious, in those other environments, I am guessing you only have one name, rather than first and last?

It seems SL made a lot of bad choices back at the beginning that restrict what they can do now, but it seems to me it would have been better if we had a login ID such at email, and then a separate username, with the actual account info being passed to in-world merchants or whoever as part of being logged into SL. The MP would seem to be easy there, you have to log into MP once for all the places you would buy from anyway, so just use your account login instead of your inworld username. I guess I don't know the details of all this, but seems like it could be more flexible. OTOH, off the top of my head, I can't think of any other accounts I have that let me change my username, either, so perhaps that wouldn't help. It seems like it would be simple, but maybe not.

Who know, it's just this whole name thing seems a mess, and made worse by not being able to have spaces (and maybe not even underscores or periods?) in usernames. And while display names may help a little, they are implemented in a halfway, haphazard manner and don't show up a lot of the places I feel they need to (for example, in the Forum, or in-world People searches). That is why I just finally gave up and started a new account with the two names I want squished together as one name. That is as close as I will ever get with LL.

I don't think the problem is changing a name. I think the problem is changing a name without anything breaking, especially when this is a retroactive change. On other platforms, where the account system was created (or changed early on) in such a way that name changes were anticipated, it's not a problem.

When LL added display names, that must've been relatively hassle-free because nothing relied on display names yet. User/avatar names on the other hand...

Edited December 21, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Coffee Pancake]

3 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

I don't think the problem is changing a name. I think the problem is changing a name without anything breaking, especially when this is a retroactive change. On other platforms, where the account system was created (or changed early on) in such a way that name changes were anticipated, it's not a problem.

This has been so long in development to ensure name changes work without breakage. It should when released, be a fully automated process and no different from other platforms which had this functionality from the start. The only actual breakage will be scripted user content that caches names, and there is nothing LL can do about that.

The fact it was a big project that took a lot of work isn't the end users fault. We didn't design the system, or ignore questions about name changes since launch, or take away the last names for reasons, or neglect to wonder about the usability of a single string username system after years of use.

 

Edited December 21, 2019 by CoffeeDujour

[Wulfie Reanimator]

59 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

This has been so long in development to ensure name changes work without breakage. It should when released, be a fully automated process and no different from other platforms which had this functionality from the start. The only actual breakage will be scripted user content that caches names, and there is nothing LL can do about that.

The fact it was a big project that took a lot of work isn't the end users fault. We didn't design the system, or ignore questions about name changes since launch, or take away the last names for reasons, or neglect to wonder about the usability of a single string username system after years of use.

I don't disagree with any of that. I've just explained what the situation might be, with no value judgements (meaning whether LL's decisions are good or bad).

Edited December 21, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Drayke Newall]

15 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Not so!  See my blog post, "Premium Benefits Creep".  I've had to edit it three times since I first wrote it, which shows the benefits keep on creeping on.

Do people read posts properly or just glaze over it? I said that they haven't changed it reasonably. I am well aware that they have added a few perks here and there however there are very few perks that benefit a brand new user or someone that really hasn't been in world for about 1 year. Apologies in advance for the long post but wanted to cover perks one by one.

• The weekly stipend hasn't been increased for a long time despite inflation within second life itself. For perspective, to just get a decent body and head it would take you half a year of stipends to buy the combo not including skin, hair, clothing etc. To furnish your house it would take around the same if you solely rely on the strip-end. To buy a clothing item it would take 2 weeks etc. May benefit a new user though they will certainly be complaining about having to need to buy more lindens to even start to have fun on top of their sub.
• The $L1000 bonus is after 2 months staying and then removed entirely. So at most a decent reward only after 2 months then nothing after. Encourages people to stay for 2 months only. Surely a better system would be as a reward for say staying 2 months then 6 months, then 12, then 24. Benefits a new user only once.
• A Linden home or parcel of land at 1024m². As mentioned this is the only benefit to keep people around. That said, also comes with the downside of having slow AR resolution, no resident to resident dispute management, no resident ban system (other than the slow LL AR system), a non customisable house structure etc. Additionally, private land can be bought for a cost usually of $L1 or part of the first week of tier, as opposed to the cost it is to buy mainland parcels from other residents or LL auctions that in popular areas can go for many hundreds of USD. Only major benefit for a new user though has many downsides and refer to last few paragraphs regarding value.
• Premium support of which after over 15 years of me being on SL I have never had to use. Sure, some people may however this isn't really a 'necessity' or a perk imo. Live chat comes into this as well. Wont benefit a new user who can get support from inworld residents, forums etc all free.
• Premium Gift of which over half are badly optimised or useless and usually end up as inventory filler. May benefit a new user however most gifts are pointless to a new user looking to actually customise their avatar or furnish their house with decent animated items.
• Access to premium sandboxes of which are on mainland therefore come with some expected lag, and even though your article states that it cuts down griefers I disagree as, 90% of griefing takes place on LL controlled sandboxes as LL are never online to police it whereas resident owned sandboxes have people online almost all the time to sort out issues. Not a benefit to a new user as the inworld search engine is built around how may people are on a sim at the time and therefore a new user wanting to socialise and build will go elsewhere. You have to scroll a fair way down if Sandbox is typed into search just to see LL sandboxes.
• Premium regions of which are to be honest boring and almost always empty which, goes to show just how worth while this perk is if none of those premium members are even there. New user will go once and never again as they go to places where people are. Empty regions is one of the prime negatives touted as SL's problem from new users.
• Free voice morphing of which isn't necessary any more (and never was) as it can be done with 3rd party software outside of SL voice system. New user wont use as they wouldn't even know how to use it or find the button.
• Increased group numbers - maybe a bonus but I've never gone over the 40 limit anyway but that's just me. If I have an issue with a product I directly IM the owner or their staff as per the request of 90% of their profiles stating to do or go to their stores regularly to see if anything is new. New user wouldn't need that many and wont need that many for quite a while.
• Better access to crowded sims. LMAO unless the 10 other free slots are already taken by other premium members and you don't click that teleport button in time which all other people are clicking non stop as well. New user would have just as much trouble at getting into an event as a basic user would not to mention would instantly leave SL due to the extreme lag at events.
• Better transaction history, maybe a merchant would need this however if they are relying on evidence for tax etc they would use a better system to track it all. New user wouldn't need this.
• Higher cap on IM's. Probably the only other worth while perk on the whole system. New user wouldn't need this but maybe they will.
• Name change. This latest addition is not a perk at all considering perks are usually free not an added cost. Highly doubt it would be needed by the new user.

Sure, granted some people may find premium worth while but, the way premium has been organised or offered currently is to benefit only the existing long term user. If linden lab want to remove reliance on tier and make premium viable and draw the new user in they need to offer a lot more perks directed to the new user that are of value and not something they wont need for a while.

Lastly regarding land and strip-end, to put it into perspective for a new user, they can rent privately a 1024m² parcel of land with 608 prim allowance for $L378/week. Using the prim to cost ratio of this parcel of approx. $L1.6/prim, this would mean that LL's 1024 parcel with 351 prim allowance offered in the premium package is worth approx. $L220/week. So against the actual offered LL land in the subscription a new user can get 257 extra prims which is far more beneficial than 351prims. Using the above:

• Linden Lab's land value (including the extra prims not awarded that the private parcel does for comparison) is $L1638/mth and strip end of $L1300/mth or a total of USD $11.04. EDIT 2: for those wondering the LL offered land price without the extra prims calculated in + strip end is $L2254 or $8.71USD.
• For the private parcel value of $L1646/mth and strip end of $L1300/mth the value in USD would be $11.39 totaling an extra $0.35.
• Given that the total cost of premium for one month is $11.99 both are still under, but as far as land and strip-end value goes prim to prim for an extra $0.35/month I get a better parcel of land (keeping in mind the subscription offers a parcel with 257 LESS prims), the strip-end, and a more dedicated and timely response for land support.

So sorry, but unless my maths is wrong and it could be considering I had to convert land value to $L then no, your subscription to premium is NOT worth it for the new user when the strip-end and house/land is really all they need/want to start off with. Of course if you chuck in the IM cap and increased user count this would put a little more value on premium, but not for a new user and when a new user would go over or how much this would be worth to the user would be impossible to determine, especially based on (from what I have seen and based on LL never being able to rely on premium to remove tier reliance) basic users outweigh premium by a mile.

EDIT: By the way i'm aware 1 year reduces the sub price to $8.99 but was using a month to month sub cost. The $3 difference is negligible.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Drayke Newall
Late Edit 2: added point about LL land without extra prims

[ItHadToComeToThis]

7 hours ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

Personally, having been around when you just automatically got a last name as part of signing up (though with crappy choices), that too would seem pretty shifty to me. They still use last names as part of the system, just with no choice. I would be like, "Wait, I have to take Premium and pay $40 to get a name??? Wow, what else am I going to have to pay for?" I have to admit I say this in total ignorance of other games/online world experiences and stuff, probably all of them require a subscription or something. Times do change, I know, but wow, this seems pretty parsimonious. Of course, noone has to engage in SL, and in fact, the vast majority of people are making just that choice. All this kind of stuff doesn't seem conducive to changing that, though.

No, as in. It’s included in the premium 1 year offer. As In part of the package. Then after that you pay if you ever want to change it again. 
 

So you would basically have the following options :

Pay a years premium and get a name change included at account creation

or

Pay for it later by paying a month and getting the name change on top for $52 or whatever. Which may sound like the more attractive offer but it isn’t when you take into account that for $40 more you are gaining an extra 11 months of premium and 48 more weeks of stipend.

Could even be marketed as $40 cheaper than doing it after

Edited December 21, 2019 by ItHadToComeToThis

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Drayke Newall said:

• The weekly stipend
• The $L1000 bonus
• A Linden home or parcel of land at 1024m².

on these three

Linden are working on a Premium Plus package

if I was the Boss Linden (which I am not, but if I was) then my question to myself in considering this is what do I want from my shareholders pov.  As Boss CEO Linden i want my Earnings numbers (revenue) up for sure.  But as Big Boss Board Chair Linden then I more want my Daily User Numbers (concurrency) up. As it is concurrency that more affects my shareholders capital value than do earnings per user/resident

to get my concurrency up then I need to give my current consumer users a reason to log in, at least weekly

a third issue I have is user retention over the long term (as well as the short term - brand new users). With long term what can I offer my 50+ something millions of previous consumer users to start logging in again, and keep  logging in weekly

another issue I currently have is swathes and swathes of unoccupied and abandoned legacy mainland which is a immediately visible reflection of user inactivity

Stipend.  What I would look at is how to use L$ stipend as a longevity bonus reward.  I would look at increasing the stipend for my long time consumer residents.  For example: When a user has 5 years of accumulative premium membership on the same account then I would give L$400 weekly stipend.  After 10 years then L$500 a week. To get the extra stipend bonus L$100/200 each week then my user has to log in for that week. If they do not login then its L$300 for that week.  How this bonus amount works is the same as the old L$50 stipend, log in at least once each week or  lose it

Base Tier.  For example: When a user has 5 years of accumulative premium membership on the same account then I would give 2048m base tier for the annual premium payment.  After 10 years I would give 4096m base tier.  This is not use it or lose like stipend bonus because of the way parcel ownership necessarily works.  Our user doesn't get to have 2 or 4 Linden Homes on the same account though. they still only get 1 Linden Home per account.  The bonus tier I want them to apply to legacy mainland, to get my mainland ownership/activity numbers up

if it was me then I would do this for my consumer residents, rather than a Premium Plus package with an increase in tier/stipend for more US dollars. My consumer residents can wait til time served, or they can prepay me $US500 or the difference now today (5 years worth), and I will give them the next level now today

a thing about prepay is when people do this then they have confidence in the future of the company to continue to serve their needs/wants. A thing with this from a limited liability company's pov is that if the company does go bust then the prepays are at worst unsecured creditors,  at best then is oh! well.  From the prepayers pov then they have faith (are betting) that it won't go bust

my Premium Plus package would be all about the Marketplace.  What extra benefits can I offer my Marketplace merchants in a Plus package that would have them want to buy these extra benefits from me

[ItHadToComeToThis]

I’d give anything just to be able to actually sort and categorise my store into sub folders instead of EVERYTHING WITH KEYWORDS

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, ItHadToComeToThis said:

I’d give anything just to be able to actually sort and categorise my store into sub folders instead of EVERYTHING WITH KEYWORDS

This sorting is distinct from the MP's own taxonomy, right?

Is this sorting intended to be visible, useful to shoppers? I'm trying to imagine ever using that... but then, I have no idea how many shoppers actually use the link to the merchant's MP store. And whether that differs among MP product categories. And whether it's correlated with likelihood (or value) of purchase. 

Do you sort your email into folders? (Really. I'm just curious)

[Drayke Newall]

2 hours ago, Mollymews said:

on these three

Linden are working on a Premium Plus package

SNIP

That's all well and good but once again the Premium Plus package will more than likely be geared towards a generic existing userbase. All it will be is some extra bonuses to long term existing members and nothing for the new user to bite their teeth into. If the package they offer already isn't enough with basic users outnumbering premium by a large amount then I highly doubt a more expensive premium will entice more people to become premium unless there are some major benefits like shared inventory across accounts or the ability to buy a homestead without a full region.

The yearly steps you showed in your example are way to far apart for any type of reason to stay on premium for that long. They would be better off with a increasing bonus reward that is rewarded at a x2 monthly rate e.g. $1000L at 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc months with possibly increasing the bonus amount at those intervals as well.

The name change was a good way for them to entice people onto the current premium if it was offered for a reasonable price but at $40 that wont entice many onto a subscription at all especially new users. They would have been better off creating the name change as part of a newer higher cost premium package as opposed to an additional cost on top (which will always be a hard sell) or having it as a separate non premium required item which even if they left it at $40 would offer far more potential income to a larger userbase whilst also giving the current basic users a "hey we appreciate you so you can name change too" tone over trying to market a premium package and then additional cost on top of that. 

They also need to break the subscription model into sections providing for the new user, merchant, creator, sim owner, ultimate user. This means that the new user can get into the subscription model at a low cost with what they need to encourage them to stay in SL and make it value for money which it isn't at the moment (as I showed in my post above). Then, because the subscription model is tiered it will allow the basic premium to be upgraded by the new user to whatever that user has found they like about second life, that being either creating, making money, socialising through sim creation, a combination of all or stay on the basic premium if they just want to socialise.

I would gladly go onto premium again if they offered the strip-end and house for $5 without all the other bonuses (which I would never use or need) as then I wouldn't be able to get a parcel of land (irrespective of prim allowance) and the strip end cheaper. What is the point of a premium package if you can get the main items at the same cost as the price for a sub.

Sandboxes these days are also pointless as with the need to upload mesh from outside of SL any creator that wants to fiddle with LI and LOD will go to the beta grid first as it is cheaper. If mesh creation was in world then sure sandboxes would be full again with people building like they did when there was no mesh, but as it stands sandboxes are primarily used by residents to socialise whilst having the ability to rez stuff while they do. This shows how out of touch LL are with their userbase if they think having a sandbox will be used for creation.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Drayke Newall

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

Stipend.  What I would look at is how to use L$ stipend as a longevity bonus reward.  I would look at increasing the stipend for my long time consumer residents.  For example: When a user has 5 years of accumulative premium membership on the same account then I would give L$400 weekly stipend.  After 10 years then L$500 a week. To get the extra stipend bonus L$100/200 each week then my user has to log in for that week. If they do not login then its L$300 for that week.  How this bonus amount works is the same as the old L$50 stipend, log in at least once each week or  lose it

I really like making the extra stipend contingent on at least one weekly login.

As I'm sure you know, there's a similar "longevity" effect (not login-contingent) for very old accounts: those with rez dates before a certain date get L$500, and a few with rez dates slightly later get L$400. (I believe there's also a login-contingent L$50/wk stipend for some, but I'm not sure the other requirements for that group. I know that at least for a time it was "fragile" in that, if a once-eligible Premium account downgraded back to Basic, they weren't eligible for the L$50 anymore.)

Stipends are kind of important to the functioning of the SL economy. There are not that many Premium accounts (currently), so the raw stipend payout itself would be only a small part of weekly L$ transactions, but things would get very grim very fast if stipends and all the follow-on spending were to suddenly dry up. I mean that as just a general money-supply effect, but I bet there are many concrete examples of oldbie Premiums who budget their SL spending based pretty directly on their stipend-supported L$ balance.

Speaking of money supply, though, that's a thing about stipends: they are a significant "source" of new L$s, so the volume of stipends can't grow arbitrarily without some offsetting "sink" lest the excess L$ supply reduces the currency's exchange rate. (There's some built-in offsetting effect of sinks like commissions and fees expanding whenever the economy expands, but I don't think those offsetting sinks can automatically grow at the same rate as fresh stipends could be minted.)

[Alwin Alcott]

55 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

 those with rez dates before a certain date get L$500,
with rez dates slightly later get L$400.
a login-contingent L$50/wk stipend for some

https://secondlife.fandom.com/wiki/Stipend

[Kia Kiyori]

On 12/17/2019 at 8:36 PM, Orwar said:

   $40, and picking from a premade list?

   ...I also don't get why they ever stopped allowing two-part names to begin with.

I'm going to guess that it was meant to be a forward thinking move for a time when they'd need another cash cow, but I think they overestimated how many would have more dollars than sense and fall for it after the price and restrictions were revealed.

But it's ok, I'm sure that in another 6 months to a year they'll be announcing yet another price hike or two with some of the most creative justifications we could ever imagine.

[S4mCr0ft]

On 12/17/2019 at 1:04 AM, Jimbo Mimulus said:

Under section 5 (Prize) item "A"
Description of Prizes. One free Last Names change (estimated value at US$39.99 plus $11.99 to represent the value of a month of Premium Membership) on an account of Winner’s choice.

Little confused about this.

 

The rules state:- "one free last names change" as the prize.

Now, I've entered the competition and suggested Croft as a potential last name. I'm wondering if there is a slight printing error, or if the prize genuinely is for a last name change only.

I would much rather have my name as Sam Croft ... than S4mCr0ft Croft. (assuming I'm lucky enough to win)

 

A little clarification would be most appreciated.

Edited December 21, 2019 by S4mCr0ft

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, S4mCr0ft said:

Little confused about this.

 

The rules state:- "one free last names change" as the prize.

Now, I've entered the competition and suggested Croft as a potential last name. I'm wondering if there is a slight printing error, or if the prize genuinely is for a last name change only.

I would much rather have my name as Sam Croft ... than S4mCr0ft Croft. (assuming I'm lucky enough to win)

 

A little clarification would be most appreciated.

if Croft is available as a Last Name then yes you will be able to change your name from S4mCrOft Resident to Sam Croft. The Linden plan is that when name changing then can change both first name and last name

a thing is that you will have to be quick with wanting a first name like Sam. Short common english first names will most likely go really quickly (based on what used to happen with how last names worked previously)  Sam, Jack, Jim, Bill, Harry, Pete, Joe, Ann, Jane, Mary, Jill, Betty, etc etc. As soon as a new batch of Last Names came out then all the short common english names would be taken in a very short time. Sometimes in less than 24 hours

so keep a close eye on it when Last Names do become available. If somebody else gets in before you on Sam Croft then you will have to choose another name

 

[CaerolleClaudel]

3 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

if Croft is available as a Last Name then yes you will be able to change your name from S4mCrOft Resident to Sam Croft. The Linden plan is that when name changing then can change both first name and last name

a thing is that you will have to be quick with wanting a first name like Sam. Short common english first names will most likely go really quickly (based on what used to happen with how last names worked previously)  Sam, Jack, Jim, Bill, Harry, Pete, Joe, Ann, Jane, Mary, Jill, Betty, etc etc. As soon as a new batch of Last Names came out then all the short common english names would be taken in a very short time. Sometimes in less than 24 hours

so keep a close eye on it when Last Names do become available. If somebody else gets in before you on Sam Croft then you will have to choose another name

 

Not that this is likely to happen, as it is probably too inconvenient for LL, but wouldn't it be nice if someone whose name suggestion was implemented got fist shot at actually accessing that name?

[CaerolleClaudel]

5 hours ago, ItHadToComeToThis said:

I’d give anything just to be able to actually sort and categorise my store into sub folders instead of EVERYTHING WITH KEYWORDS

I'd like to see MP set up like every other online shopping site in having ONE ENTRY for each item, with a drop-down for variants, instead of having an individual entry for every single variant. I would love that in-world, too, but in-world shopping is a nightmare period, and I doubt SL can handle something as simple and convenient at that anyhow. It blows my mind how clunky every single thing associated with SL is considered LL is strictly an online business. They don't even have a mobile version of the SL login page, FFS.

[Mollymews]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

(I believe there's also a login-contingent L$50/wk stipend for some, but I'm not sure the other requirements for that group. I know that at least for a time it was "fragile" in that, if a once-eligible Premium account downgraded back to Basic, they weren't eligible for the L$50 anymore.)

Stipends are kind of important to the functioning of the SL economy. There are not that many Premium accounts (currently), so the raw stipend payout itself would be only a small part of weekly L$ transactions, but things would get very grim very fast if stipends and all the follow-on spending were to suddenly dry up. I mean that as just a general money-supply effect, but I bet there are many concrete examples of oldbie Premiums who budget their SL spending based pretty directly on their stipend-supported L$ balance.

Speaking of money supply, though, that's a thing about stipends: they are a significant "source" of new L$s, so the volume of stipends can't grow arbitrarily without some offsetting "sink" lest the excess L$ supply reduces the currency's exchange rate. (There's some built-in offsetting effect of sinks like commissions and fees expanding whenever the economy expands, but I don't think those offsetting sinks can automatically grow at the same rate as fresh stipends could be minted.)

on the fragile part of the L$50 stipend paid to the old eligible Basic accounts. Yes I think you are right that when the account is upgraded to Premium and then reverted to Basic they don't get the 50L stipend when reverted.  Maybe somebody reading went thru this can confirm

the amount of L$ and the qualifying criteria. Drayke suggests a L$ Lump Sum bonus payment method which is a viable alternative as well.  The idea being more about providing incentives for people to log on more frequently to earn the bonus, and less about the amount and qualifying criteria

you Qie are right also about the effect this might have on the LindeX. If say the number of Premium accounts was 60,000.  If they all got another 100L a week then L$6,000,000 a week pumped into the world. About 5%? of the current LindeX weekly volume I think. Might mean less intervention on the LindeX by Supply Linden doing top ups

 

[Drayke Newall]

6 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

you Qie are right also about the effect this might have on the LindeX. If say the number of Premium accounts was 60,000.  If they all got another 100L a week then L$6,000,000 a week pumped into the world. About 5%? of the current LindeX weekly volume I think. Might mean less intervention on the LindeX by Supply Linden doing top ups

Quite true and is why I'm more in favor of regular bonus payments as they wont have such a dramatic effect on the market than a weekly increase. That said, there are always viable money sinks available for LL to introduce to offset any potential issues that may come about such as increasing the partner listing from its low L$20 (if I remember correct) or as I previously mentioned removing the time restriction on display name changing and make that a L$ payment instead.

If only banks that were removed from SL were replaced instead by one LL managed in world and governed by them as well as far as interest and fees go. Would add a new dynamic into SL as well as allow for some method of increasing the strip-end and L$ for basic users through interest without necessarily impacting on the market due to the fees that can be put in place. But I am also aware they were removed for a reason.

[ItHadToComeToThis]

5 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

This sorting is distinct from the MP's own taxonomy, right?

Is this sorting intended to be visible, useful to shoppers? I'm trying to imagine ever using that... but then, I have no idea how many shoppers actually use the link to the merchant's MP store. And whether that differs among MP product categories. And whether it's correlated with likelihood (or value) of purchase. 

Do you sort your email into folders? (Really. I'm just curious)

Think of it as being similar to sub folders on your computer / custom categories. You visit someone’s marketplace and instead of seeing all of their items for sale, instead you see 5 or 6 “sub folders” each one having its own icon and name. One could be named “Jewellery” another “Female AO’s” or one could be named for a specific project such as “Qie’s Ultimate Combat System”. You then click on this “folder” and it loads everything to do with that particular project/category. Think how handy it would be in the case of stores that have over 900 pages of products. Rather than trawling through page after page of everything mixed together you could separate it all into their own individual sub categories. “Male Pants”, “Male Tops”, “Female Pants”, “Accessories”, “Demos”, “Gacha”. At the minute you have the grand old choice of “Apparel” which loads anything and everything relating to “All of the above”.

And yes, I use special rules to automatically sort out my emails into folders. I have one folder for work stuff, receipts for online purchases, web server.. I don’t use it on everything, just the stuff I consider important.

[Fauve Aeon]

Just speculating about things as we all are, (which is a fun pastime on a forum provided people don’t get pedantic ), I’m assuming ‘one free *last name* change’ means the winners will be allowed to change the last name of our account from ‘Resident’ to ‘new last name’ or from ‘older last name’ to ‘new last name’. My unfortunate ‘Resident’ cousin is still racking up entries in the contest because nearly any last name is better than being clumped in with the ‘Resident’ clan. She was still a bit careful in choosing her first name, just using 5 regular alphabet characters in a reasonably pronounceable arrangement with a capital letter at the beginning and she didn’t use numbers or a ‘firstlast’ combo. I’m wondering how hard it is to get a decently recognizable but still unique first name currently without resorting to the numbers or 2-name squish. Probably not easy at all. That’s maybe become a barrier to signup. Indicating that you can change it for a fee later and meanwhile use a display name seems a bit cumbersome to me but it’s an improvement to the current ‘one chance, one name’ policy. 
For commentary on any LL policy, we can’t really know the full scope, immediate focus or long game goals of the LL business model besides the basic business ones of ‘stay solvent’, ‘don’t lose substantial numbers of users’, etc. so speculating on one feature’s importance in isolation feels a little like the story of 2 blindfolded men describing the elephant. I’m not sure how much conventional business planning vs innovative ‘not done before’ thinking is in play at the Lab, I’d love to think they are much more ‘believe 3 impossible things before breakfast’ than ‘historic trend-line’ but regardless, I am guessing that extrapolation and single point planning models aren’t used so much. With Sansar, they’ve taken a huge risk, and I’m assuming can afford for it to fail, and assuming further that these kinds of huge risks (and some expected fails at large and small levels) are part of the plans, that’s what it takes to innovate. I’ve been in SL since Feb 2008, I heard that it ‘was dying’ the first week I was here, and I’ll be 12 soon and I’m still not considered ‘an oldbie’ by the OG, and never will be!! 🙃 I have goals for my 2020 SL Bucket List, I’m still excited about the things I do here. 

I hear the extreme hesitation and very careful word choosing in voice at most Linden Lab larger public meetings and Q&A. I feel like it has gotten to the point where the spokespeople tell residents very little and only reveal sneak peeks of already-decided things because even mentioning anything tentative or kicking around ideas gets topics shredded and criticized very harshly both for the idea itself or if the idea doesn’t make it to development, which is a shame. Maybe it’s different at the weekly meetings, so I should probably go to a few more and see. 

A trend is a trend is a trend. But the question is, will it bend?

Will it alter its course through some unforeseen force

and come to a premature end?

Cairncros(1969)

tldr: don’t get hung up on any one SL feature, look at the big picture of your SLife. Have fun. 

[Qie Niangao]

14 minutes ago, ItHadToComeToThis said:

And yes, I use special rules to automatically sort out my emails into folders. I have one folder for work stuff, receipts for online purchases, web server.. I don’t use it on everything, just the stuff I consider important.

Thanks. I think some folks are more inclined to taxonomic structures than others. I used to obsess with sorting all messages into one folder or another -- but this was before I got into the gmail beta. (Yes. That long ago.) The first time I searched "All Mail" for a message that didn't turn up in the expected category I realized that Google could search way better than I or my filters can sort.

To the Marketplace: Okay, so this hierarchical folder structure specific to an individual merchant store is intended for the customer. So it seems relevant only to folks who shop merchant stores, not those of us who wade through individual items from many merchants. I'm not a big MP shopper and in no way representative, but personally it could be years before I'd notice this feature, and then I'm not sure I'd ever use it.

[Beth Macbain]

3 hours ago, AnyaJurelle said:

But it's ok, I'm sure that in another 6 months to a year they'll be announcing yet another price hike or two with some of the most creative justifications we could ever imagine.

They don't need any justification other than "because we feel like it," especially since no matter what they say, people are going to lose their sh*t and act like it's the worst thing to happen since Hitler. 

The cost of doing business increases, therefore businesses increase their prices. 

I don't know why people think this basic rule of economics doesn't apply to LL. 

[Kia Kiyori]

2 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

They don't need any justification other than "because we feel like it," especially since no matter what they say, people are going to lose their sh*t and act like it's the worst thing to happen since Hitler. 

The cost of doing business increases, therefore businesses increase their prices. 

I don't know why people think this basic rule of economics doesn't apply to LL. 

Not disagreeing with you. It's just a bad business model.