Why is Second Life expensive?

[Lord Derryth]

I've been in Second Life for 17 years.  SL is actually 3 months older than I am.  I finally realized that this platform is very expensive.  When I realized that it was because of a platform/game called Dual Universe.  DU is a metaverse like SL.  In DU, you pay $6 a month and must purchase at least 3 months in order to have active service.  If you ask me.  It's a steal.  Why?  (BTW not advertising for DU pointing out the obvious with SL).  In SL, you get a small piece of land for like what.....$10 a month?  If you want a sim you must pay $300 a month.  In DU, you get 10 times the size of a SL sim and you can build massive cities.  That's only $6 a month.  You get a freaking tile that is 10 times the size of SL sims and unlimited....I don't know what to call it let just say prims?  Is it because people make money off of SL?  Why not take a bigger cut?  I don't see why SL can't be affordable for everyone as DU is.  You can get more people to enjoy SL without breaking the bank.  If World of Warcraft charges $14.99 a month and they have more servers than SL can count.  Why the $300 a month?  This is why I've been discouraged from SL because I can't honestly afford a sim to build on.  Not everyone wants to shop and spend and be homeless in the streets.  

It's starting to dawn on me that SL is by far the most expensive platform out there.  I don't count those stupid sex virtual worlds that charge over $20 a month.  Think about it.  Novaquark has changed the game.  If you see one of their old videos they explain how they control lag with massive people in one area.  I know some of you will get all technical with the "Oh SL has mesh and blah blah".  What is being changed in SL that is so game breaking that $300 is worth having a sim?  Remember!  If you don't make money in SL, you are really not doing anything.  If SL ever goes bye bye.  All that money you spent on items INGAME will go bye bye.  The future for us doesn't look too bright.

[LexxiXhan]

It isn't.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Is this an advertisement?

 

Anyway... here's one thing to consider about the smaller land limits of SL. They mean that most of us are forced into communities.

If everyone has their own isolated island - why bother with SL at all - just use Open Sim.

 

[Gage Wirefly]

20 minutes ago, Lord Derryth said:

I've been in Second Life for 17 years.  SL is actually 3 months older than I am.  I finally realized that this platform is very expensive.  When I realized that it was because of a platform/game called Dual Universe.  DU is a metaverse like SL.  In DU, you pay $6 a month and must purchase at least 3 months in order to have active service.  If you ask me.  It's a steal.  Why?  (BTW not advertising for DU pointing out the obvious with SL).  In SL, you get a small piece of land for like what.....$10 a month?  If you want a sim you must pay $300 a month.  In DU, you get 10 times the size of a SL sim and you can build massive cities.  That's only $6 a month.  You get a freaking tile that is 10 times the size of SL sims and unlimited....I don't know what to call it let just say prims?  Is it because people make money off of SL?  Why not take a bigger cut?  I don't see why SL can't be affordable for everyone as DU is.  You can get more people to enjoy SL without breaking the bank.  If World of Warcraft charges $14.99 a month and they have more servers than SL can count.  Why the $300 a month?  This is why I've been discouraged from SL because I can't honestly afford a sim to build on.  Not everyone wants to shop and spend and be homeless in the streets.  

It's starting to dawn on me that SL is by far the most expensive platform out there.  I don't count those stupid sex virtual worlds that charge over $20 a month.  Think about it.  Novaquark has changed the game.  If you see one of their old videos they explain how they control lag with massive people in one area.  I know some of you will get all technical with the "Oh SL has mesh and blah blah".  What is being changed in SL that is so game breaking that $300 is worth having a sim?  Remember!  If you don't make money in SL, you are really not doing anything.  If SL ever goes bye bye.  All that money you spent on items INGAME will go bye bye.  The future for us doesn't look too bright.

So basically your argument is that because you can't afford it, it should be made cheaper so you can afford it? That's not how life works-virtual or otherwise.  And yes SL folds and everything you spent there is gone because that is how disposable  income works. It's not an investment.  If your money is better spent on another service you have the freedom to go there and not spend in SL. Good luck.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Gage Wirefly

[Silent Mistwalker]

33 minutes ago, Lord Derryth said:

I've been in Second Life for 17 years.  SL is actually 3 months older than I am.  I finally realized that this platform is very expensive.  When I realized that it was because of a platform/game called Dual Universe.  DU is a metaverse like SL.  In DU, you pay $6 a month and must purchase at least 3 months in order to have active service.  If you ask me.  It's a steal.  Why?  (BTW not advertising for DU pointing out the obvious with SL).  In SL, you get a small piece of land for like what.....$10 a month?  If you want a sim you must pay $300 a month.  In DU, you get 10 times the size of a SL sim and you can build massive cities.  That's only $6 a month.  You get a freaking tile that is 10 times the size of SL sims and unlimited....I don't know what to call it let just say prims?  Is it because people make money off of SL?  Why not take a bigger cut?  I don't see why SL can't be affordable for everyone as DU is.  You can get more people to enjoy SL without breaking the bank.  If World of Warcraft charges $14.99 a month and they have more servers than SL can count.  Why the $300 a month?  This is why I've been discouraged from SL because I can't honestly afford a sim to build on.  Not everyone wants to shop and spend and be homeless in the streets.  

It's starting to dawn on me that SL is by far the most expensive platform out there.  I don't count those stupid sex virtual worlds that charge over $20 a month.  Think about it.  Novaquark has changed the game.  If you see one of their old videos they explain how they control lag with massive people in one area.  I know some of you will get all technical with the "Oh SL has mesh and blah blah".  What is being changed in SL that is so game breaking that $300 is worth having a sim?  Remember!  If you don't make money in SL, you are really not doing anything.  If SL ever goes bye bye.  All that money you spent on items INGAME will go bye bye.  The future for us doesn't look too bright.

Does DU have the equivalent of a basic account? If you have to pay for membership, it isn't cheaper than SL where you don't have to pay for a membership and can still earn enough to cover your "expenses" without ever spending a cent of real life money.

Any MMO you are a part of will cease to exist some day and all the real money you spent on it will be down the drain just as if you have flushed it yourself. I think you're making a mountain out of a grain of sand.

Not that it matters, I've been in SL for almost 17 years myself. All the real money I have spent on SL so far has been for entertainment, much of which was for a homestead I had for a few years so I've spent in the thousands over the years. Not because I had to but because it was a faster means of obtaining my goal. 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

47 minutes ago, Lord Derryth said:

Remember!  If you don't make money in SL, you are really not doing anything.  If SL ever goes bye bye.  All that money you spent on items INGAME will go bye bye.  The future for us doesn't look too bright.

The same applies to your proposed alternative and any other online service. Yes, even World or Warcraft.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[GoSpeed Racer]

In SL I can look real nice, party with friends, and find entertainment. DU is all about grinding, building, and economics. Oh you also get to look a member of Daft Punk. To each their own.

[Rolig Loon]

30 minutes ago, Lord Derryth said:

It's starting to dawn on me that SL is by far the most expensive platform out there. 

And it took you 17 years to come up with that idea?  

The answer is clearly that a lot of other people don't think it's as expensive as you do, or they see a lot more value in it than you do.  As Gage said, SL is not an investment.  It's a hobby, a vacation pastime, a place to create/share/socialize with other people.  You don't have to spend any money to be here at all.  A Basic account is free, and here's more than enough free stuff around  ( and a lot of very inexpensive stuff ).  You don't need to get a Premium membership, own land, buy sailboats and racing cars, or have a top of the line mesh body and a full inventory of designer clothes.   People who decide to clearly have enough disposable income to pay for all that. They wouldn't be spending the money if they didn't think it was worth doing. 

If you've gotten tired of SL or you've found other ways to spend your leisure time, that's fine.  Everyone else here has made their own choice, and Linden Lab is doing quite nicely maintaining a world that they enjoy.

[Bree Giffen]

It sounds like the OP is talking mainly about Region Prices being expensive. Wasn’t there some mention of region prices dropping after moving servers to the cloud? Which was also why the tax on SL Marketplace will get larger? 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Lord Derryth said:

Remember!  If you don't make money in SL, you are really not doing anything.

Lolwhut?

[Solar Legion]

14 years in and you know what I've found? Especially recently?

It really is not until you get much bigger than about a quarter of a Region that the prices begin to get a bit ... much for the average user, let alone someone like myself (fixed income). This is quite likely by design, especially after the advent of Private Regions as with each new Region bought, they had to tie to to server hardware. Having them be so expensive cut down on the number of users who could buy them.

As far as general Tier is concerned? Which would you prefer: A large number of users paying Tier on smaller parcels or a smaller number of users paying Tier on larger parcels/whole regions?

Here's a hint for you: Private Region holding "Land Barons" exist because the market leans to the former. The same goes with Mainland Region holders and Rental agencies as a whole.

The number of users who can afford an entire Region - be it as Premium and holding a whole Mainland Region or without Premium and holding an entire Private Region - is much smaller than those who can afford the smaller Tier levels.

Sure you could take this information and use it to argue that Tier prices should thus be reduced ... Except that you're still having to deal with hardware costs.

Oh yes and utterly ignoring that the vast majority of these "other metaverses" or supposed "competitors" have some limit somewhere concerning the content you create - if they allow you to create content at all.

To put this far less gently: Stop comparing Minerals to Vegetables.

[Ted McGregor]

1 hour ago, Lord Derryth said:

 Why the $300 a month?

Because I can afford it while it offers me the freedom I want. That' s why you kept paying it until you couldn' t afford it anymore, didn' t you ? 

[Rowan Amore]

Simple..SL is a luxury item.  Not a necessity.   Pay, don't pay, log in, don't log in.  YOU may not do anything in here but lots of other people do.   And it took you this long to realize that it can be expensive?  Lordy

[relauv]

Most things on Second Life are fairly priced when you take into account the conversion rate. That being said it can be expensive if you go overboard buying stuff, but buying things piecemeal is pretty manageable. Or at least I think.

But as @RowanMinxsaid, Second Life isn't a necessity or basic human right. It's a luxury. Even if things were ridiculously overpriced it wouldn't matter. Linden Labs and content creators, as well as resellers, can charge what they like. The option of not playing/buying is always a valid option. 

[animats]

Dual Universe is going to be an interesting competitor. It's a sandbox MMO, with combat and grinding. A big sandbox MMO, with 12 planets and more to come. Planets start out as rocky empty spaces with a few info hubs. Users can build. Land is free, but you have to do a lot of mining, refining, and manufacturing before you can build. That's time-consuming. If you think SL requires too much free time, DU is much worse. It's all about grinding your way up, building up your very own military-industrial complex, one bauxite rock at a time. Fortunately you can automate some of the grinding and do work in parallel. How this plays out as users move in and fill the worlds will be interesting. Technically, I'm waiting to see if the system can maintain performance as more and more of the planet surfaces are developed.

We may have lost one of SL's best promoters, Luca Grabacr, to Dual Universe. She's been making videos about how great SL is for years, and has appeared on the Friday Linden show. She went over to DU and livestreamed daily for two solid weeks. She's now up to "Fur Admiral Luca" with her own battleship and crew of furry friends from SL. Right now she's in DU negotiating deals with in-world electronics and chemical suppliers to fit out her battleship.

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Lord Derryth said:

I've been in Second Life for 17 years.  SL is actually 3 months older than I am.  I finally realized that this platform is very expensive.  When I realized that it was because of a platform/game called Dual Universe.  DU is a metaverse like SL.  In DU, you pay $6 a month and must purchase at least 3 months in order to have active service.  If you ask me.  It's a steal.  Why?  (BTW not advertising for DU pointing out the obvious with SL).  In SL, you get a small piece of land for like what.....$10 a month?  If you want a sim you must pay $300 a month.  In DU, you get 10 times the size of a SL sim and you can build massive cities.  That's only $6 a month.  You get a freaking tile that is 10 times the size of SL sims and unlimited....I don't know what to call it let just say prims?  Is it because people make money off of SL?  Why not take a bigger cut?  I don't see why SL can't be affordable for everyone as DU is.  You can get more people to enjoy SL without breaking the bank.  If World of Warcraft charges $14.99 a month and they have more servers than SL can count.  Why the $300 a month?  This is why I've been discouraged from SL because I can't honestly afford a sim to build on.  Not everyone wants to shop and spend and be homeless in the streets.  

It's starting to dawn on me that SL is by far the most expensive platform out there.  I don't count those stupid sex virtual worlds that charge over $20 a month.  Think about it.  Novaquark has changed the game.  If you see one of their old videos they explain how they control lag with massive people in one area.  I know some of you will get all technical with the "Oh SL has mesh and blah blah".  What is being changed in SL that is so game breaking that $300 is worth having a sim?  Remember!  If you don't make money in SL, you are really not doing anything.  If SL ever goes bye bye.  All that money you spent on items INGAME will go bye bye.  The future for us doesn't look too bright.

Yes, there are other virtual worlds that are cheaper. Didn't I see that Unity just IPO'd? Microsoft has launched a virtual world that will likely overtake everyone at least in size, even if we will see it as far below the quality we expect.

Yes, I could have a big "tile" as you describe it, and be able to build very cheaply in another world, either the Open Sim type ones or one like the "shiny new virtual world for developers" made by Adam Frisby, who got his start as a land baron in SL.

But it's like the opposite of the funny saying of Yogi Berra, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

There are no people. Or very few. You can't get any customers; they aren't made for inworld business. Those that had a flourishing inworld business with even top designers from SL often fell on hard times, they would offer things very cheaply, but had their own heavy expenses and went under. Read the Hypergrid blog. SL has a big advantage at this point is that it is very old, has lots of experience, has had all the major IT companies come through in the form of staff, has very experienced engineers, and has the highest monthly uniques. It just can't compare. I want to be in a world with people, even though some of them make very real the old adage that "hell is other people". What's the point of building something no one can see?

I also find some of the other worlds don't have basic things like group land, or even groups, period, which you need for rentals as far as I can tell.

It's ridiculous to blame inworld land barons or rentals agents for high prices. The fixed costs of servers originate with Linden Lab's setting of the prices. They do so to make a profit after expenses, which are considerable. I don't have a problem with that; it's normal in a liberal democratic society with free enterprise under the rule of law. You know, not like China or Russia or even Brazil or India. Which is why a lot of entrepreneurs from those countries resettle in the US and don't stay in their homelands.

The homestead is $109 for the land dealer. He can rent it at cost or a little above cost, and your entertainment cost for the month is $125 or whatever. What you get for that is pretty extraordinary. Or, if that is too steep, more than restaurants or movies (pre-COVID), well, get a 4096 of your own and pay $24 or rent one and pay even less. You will have 1200 prims. That's plenty.

Comparing Second Life to World of Warcraft is apples and oranges. SL is an open-ended virtual world where you build or buy or rent what you choose and make any theme and do anything within the TOS; you are not locked into a "game" where you are "killed"; you don't have to rely only on the game company's content and rigid rules.

I don't think you need a full sim to be happy in SL. I've never had a full sim to myself or even a homestead to myself or even a 4096. Mostly I rent out land and perch around like a bird here and there while building. Occasionally I'll make a home on a 512 or a 2048 which is perfectly sufficient. 

Edited September 21, 2020 by Prokofy Neva

[BilliJo Aldrin]

I was gonna check it out, but you have to sign up first, for a 3 month minimum.

I don't think those space suits come off either.

[Gopi Passiflora]

Funny you mention Dual Universe: I've actually started playing the Beta now! I haven't quit Second Life yet, though.

[Ceka Cianci]

I don't think I've ever heard of Dual Universe until now..

Does it have the same stuff as SL?

[Solar Legion]

5 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I don't think I've ever heard of Dual Universe until now..

Does it have the same stuff as SL?

No.

ETA: It is effectively another Minecraft In Space.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Solar Legion

[Ceka Cianci]

11 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

No.

ETA: It is effectively another Minecraft In Space.

Then I probably wouldn't like it..

hehehe

[Janet Voxel]

It’s expensive as you want it to be.

[Axel Naxos]

It's really expensive!
These days I made a list of everything you pay here, I was even more frustrated ... even to fart we paid at least 10 lindens!
It is effectively a LUXURY item as already mentioned!
Most of the beggars in SL believe I am from South America, like me ... so without any problem I accept myself as poor in SL. And since it is a real life simulator, the poor co-exist.
I stay online due to the little money I get at my store, but I can't even pay a fixed rent for me to stay and settle. And due to the dollar price here, it absolutely forbids me to buy lindens.
Apparently the OP's frustration is more for not being able to buy private land ... I wanted to expand the frustration ratio ... 😉
The most frustrating for me is the discrimination of LL with basic users. We are the last in line and we need to be lucky that some LL of good will take our ticket, other than that, we are completely ignored. Well, this is my experience.
Basic user, even if he spends a month doing Voodoo, he makes the economy spin!
I do not abandon SL ... I love it too much and I have lived days of glory for over 10 years when I could work and had income in RL ... Some 30% of my income was for SL ... and the dollar was payable to people here ...
 I even lost my dedicated video card ... any help, call my phone ... 🙂
Thanks guys, for the therapy session! LOL

[Rolig Loon]

34 minutes ago, Axel Naxos said:

The most frustrating for me is the discrimination of LL with basic users. We are the last in line and we need to be lucky that some LL of good will take our ticket, other than that, we are completely ignored. Well, this is my experience.

Mine is quite the opposite. I have been a Basic member since I joined in 2007, never really tempted to become Premium. I rented shops for the first seven years, and rented a small parcel to live on for the first time in 2012.  I bought a region from a friend in 2014, and have depended on the rents from it and on income from scripting and a trickle from my MP store to cover the monthly land fees.  Except very early on, I have never had to buy L$.  

I have rarely had to submit a support case.  When I have, though, I have had almost immediate response, starting well before I ever owned land.  I've never had the impression that I am at a disadvantage as a Basic member.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

Why does SL cost as much you say.

Some basic break downs.

 

Hardware costs are not cheap,   Data center costs are not cheap,  Bandwidth at this level is not cheap,  employee salaries are not cheap. 

See where I'm going,  LL has to provide for those basic items first, the outcome is we get to play SL,   LL is moving simulators to amazons aws platform as we speak,  so pricing could change for the better,  we are not sure what LL will do just yet.