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Aki Teriatzi

By Aki Teriatzi,
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Aki Teriatzi

Aki Teriatzi

Posted
Posted

... one step from being shut off?

I am worried. 

Monetizing last names, raising fees (Justified, because "Google" and "Apple" does it (The best laugh I had in years, reading that.)), outsourcing money transactions (Tilia) and other things being taken away and put behind a paywall raised a lot of red flags for me.

Is Linden Labs having serious income issues? - Are there new chairmen at Linden Labs which just want to milk our beautiful world?

 

I'd like to know and discuss.

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ChinRey

ChinRey

Posted
Posted (edited)

No it isn't.

Linden Lab is clearly working hard to keep their revenue but there's nothing that suggests the situation is critical.

 

4 hours ago, Aki Teriatzi said:

outsourcing money transactions (Tilia)

That's not outsourcing, just a practical restructuring. They split the money transaction part of their activities into a separate company but TIlia is still 100% owned and run by Linden Lab. (The name is a hint there btw, Tilia is the latin name for Linden.)

Edited by ChinRey
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Chaser Zaks

Chaser Zaks

Posted
Posted (edited)
Quote

Monetizing last names

They are not monetizing last names, they are monetizing the changing of names, which is expensive system wise as it changes a lot of stuff in world, and it is in part to prevent people from constantly changing names.

Quote

raising fees

Premium was likely raised because LL was legit losing money on it. Here is a old quote I had regarding the old premium price:

Quote

Annually is $6 USD a month, which if you break it down:

  • L$300 a week(About L$1,300 a month, a $5.20 value)
  • Linden home (provided you don't use more than 512 sqm of the other land) ($4.00 value)
  • 512 sqm of extra land to use(1024 sqm if you don't use the linden home) ($4.00 value)
  • Voice morphing ($8.00 value)

Those only being the things that can easily be estimated, LL technically looses $15.20 if you were able to and were to buy these individually. This doesn't include live support(who probably puts up with a bunch of cranky people daily, god bless them. <3), the L$1,000 sign up bonus, region entry priority, group limit bonus, premium regions, etc.

Personally, I feel LL is charging too little for premium. If I a job I would gladly pay more than $6 USD for what premium offers.

Quote

outsourcing money transactions (Tilia)

Tilia is owned by Linden Lab, they off loaded payment processing to the subsidiary because it is easier to manage U.S. regulations that way, as well as other foreign regulations.

Quote

other things being taken away and put behind a paywall

I haven't seen LL take things away, only add new features for premium users, which is kind of the whole point to make premium look enticing.

Overall, SL is doing quite fine! LL recentishly(past 5 years) made a multi-million dollar investment into it:

Edited by Chaser Zaks
horizonal rules added for seperation
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Arduenn Schwartzman

Arduenn Schwartzman

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Aki Teriatzi said:

Monetizing last names

SL residents asked for it, so LL delivers. It's Display Names 2.0 Deluxe for OCD people. How the hell would this herald doom?

2 hours ago, Aki Teriatzi said:

raising fees

After more than a decade of not adjusting fees for inflation. It's literally just that: inflation correction.

2 hours ago, Aki Teriatzi said:

outsourcing money transactions

Tilia is owned by Linden Lab. Better yet: Tilia is the Latin name for linden tree.

2 hours ago, Aki Teriatzi said:

other things being taken away and put behind a paywall

Like what? Oh, never mind. Aabsolutely nothing was being taken away and put behind a paywall.

But, yeah, Second Life is indeed doomed, because I feel depressed and my toes are twitching.

Check out all about SL's inevitable demise on this excellent news site, Gawker*: https://gawker.com/5158190/the-end-of-second-life

9b8afcfed38130a8188f0e0f8d4a32b5.jpg.8edb47c6a210cfb60c758f5bd6da8c32.jpg

 

Edited by Arduenn Schwartzman
* Check out Gawker's latest news articles. Excellent stuff.
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Theresa Tennyson

Theresa Tennyson

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Aki Teriatzi said:

Monetizing last names, raising fees...

Lowering tier costs, which people were screaming for years but now that the Lab went ahead and did it everyone seems to forget about...

 

But I do see your point. It's not like Amazon and Netflix have increased the cost of their subscr...

 

...um...

 

...never mind.

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Fluffy Sharkfin

Fluffy Sharkfin

Posted
Posted

The situation is indeed alarming, fortunately the OP is not alone in their concerns and others have already begun ringing the alarm bells as you can see from this thread...

Petition against new SL economy policy

(of course that was from January 2005, but just because SLs final gasp has been going on for the last 15 years doesn't make the situation any less dire!)

Seriously though, for anyone actually worried about the future of Second Life, I'd recommend heeding the words of one of the posters in that archived thread when he said

Quote

Change is often met with fear, but this is all bordering on histrionics.

thanks @Cristiano Midnight for the sage (and timeless) advice! ;)

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ChinRey

ChinRey

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Chaser Zaks said:

Overall, SL is doing quite fine! LL recentishly(past 5 years) made a multi-million dollar investment into it:

Actually, that blog post worried me quite a bit when I first read it and still does, because there seems to be nor eason advertise so loudly something as obvious as that. I mean, hiring six developers, programmers and QA people for five years is a "multi-million dollar investment" and I really hope and believe they're putting quite a bit more into it than that.

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Theresa Tennyson

Theresa Tennyson

Posted
Posted
28 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Actually, that blog post worried me quite a bit when I first read it and still does, because there seems to be nor eason advertise so loudly something as obvious as that. I mean, hiring six developers, programmers and QA people for five years is a "multi-million dollar investment" and I really hope and believe they're putting quite a bit more into it than that.

Look at the timing. That was when Sansar was rolling out and people were saying, "Linden Lab will just abandon Second Life now."

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Flea Yatsenko

Flea Yatsenko

Posted
Posted

LL is moving around income sources in order to make land cheaper. It's a good thing, and it's been in the works for a long time. All these empty sims are because there's too much supply and not enough demand at the current price. By lowering the cost of a sim, or land in general, it would, in theory, increase demand for land. Which would actually increase the SL economy and get more users in world.

To have land in SL, compared to other games, cost a lot more. LL is trying to fix that. And they could make a lot more money making microtransactions, i.e. marketplace sales, in a successful and more populated grid than relying on a lot of empty sims. But it's going to be a big change, and a lot of people are going to interpret it the wrong way.

SL can be ready for a golden age if they handle this right and open SL up to new markets.

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ChinRey

ChinRey

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

And they could make a lot more money making microtransactions, i.e. marketplace sales, in a successful and more populated grid than relying on a lot of empty sims.

No, they can't. Even the total transaction volume on MP is considerably smaller than LL's tier income and they'll have to let the merchants keep a little bit too. They've already sqeezed the MP fees as far as they can and unless they make a serious upgrade to the whole thing, there's no way they can justify or risk increasing them even more.

As for a more populated grid, dream on. There is nothing in the foreseeable future that can cause SL to collapse, that's true, but nor is there any plan I've heard of, neither from LL or from users, that could possibly give it a significant popularity boost outside its established clientelle.

Or to put it another way: SL isn't going anywhere but it isn't going anywhere either.

Edited by ChinRey
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Tolya Ugajin

Tolya Ugajin

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, Aki Teriatzi said:

... one step from being shut off?

 

Why, yes, yes it is.

You should hurry along and find something else to do with your time.  Something productive.  Maybe read more, exercise more.  Start writing poetry.  I hear knitting is relaxing.

Hurry along, now, before they turn it off and you're stuck in a defunct hard drive for all eternity.

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