Why is Second Life expensive?

[Qie Niangao]

40 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

Hardware costs are not cheap, 

It's easy to focus on the simulators, cuz there are just so many of them and their performance is so visible to users. But there's also so much data, in tiny units, all accessible in real time across the internet. That was moved to the CDN and cloud a while ago, but still: it's pretty huge.

I don't think upload fees buy perpetuities to keep forever available all that user generated content, cross-linked in countless user inventories.

[Jules Catlyn]

I think what the other worlds (except for the specifically designed ones) lack is the fact that Linden Lab treats us as adults. Second Life allows us not only to build, do business, make connections etc, but it also acknowledges that there is a sexual side to human beings. While most other "worlds" that are being created shy away from the fact that most people don't lead a g-rated life so they can offer their service on the many game stream platforms, get sponsors and don't get frowned upon, Second life has integrated and streamlined it. My Second Life doesn't revolve around g-rated activities but i do thank the great spaghetti monster that i am able to live out my urges when i so feel like it. 

As far as the cost of Second Life goes. Jobs are easy to come by and even with a small income you can find great deals on just about anything you want for your avatar. There are also cheap communities to live in, even free. We on our half sim have given shop spaces to SL photographers and even have the odd friend living on sim without paying rent. And i know for a fact that i am not the only one providing something like this. Yes, if you want your own space to do with as you please it will cost you money. But there are cheap and even free alternatives. 

[Pixie Kobichenko]

6 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.

Everything in life is subjective in terms of money & the value given to it in regards to how much of your life you ttraded away for it.

Clearly after 17 years, someone finds value in the money they spend on it.

I could type out the snarky response but I will snip it & say if it’s not worth your dime & the bit of your life that you get in return from SL, then you don’t have to spend your dimes there.

p.s. your post really does come off as advertising.

pps- I’ve visited other grids, & they look now about like a 2009 SL.  & that is why they are cheaper.

[Paul Hexem]

1 hour ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

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

While it's true that SL's basic account makes this thread effectively moot, this statement just doesn't hold up.

For half the cost of one SL region, I've got a server running 3 sandbox games with more than 60 players, 2 headless clients, a voice server, a Discord bot, and a website.

It's not mutually exclusive; OP can be wrong and LL can be price gouging at the same time.

[Rowan Amore]

LL can charge whatever they feel they need to charge.  They can double or triple the price of land, membership, whatever they choose.  We also have the choice not to pay.  I don't NEED my plot of land.  I can easily log in and out pretty much anywhere.  If I wanted to build something, there are 3746574837 sandboxes in which to do so.  SL is only expensive in comparison to what each person feels is too much.  A lot of people spend hundreds a month eating dinner out or seeing a movie. Others have memberships to county clubs.  Everyone decides on what and how much to spend on luxuries.  Do I think it's expensive?  To own a SIM, yes but that's not an important aspect to me.  

Edited September 22, 2020 by RowanMinx

[bigmoe Whitfield]

15 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

While it's true that SL's basic account makes this thread effectively moot, this statement just doesn't hold up.

For half the cost of one SL region, I've got a server running 3 sandbox games with more than 60 players, 2 headless clients, a voice server, a Discord bot, and a website.

It's not mutually exclusive; OP can be wrong and LL can be price gouging at the same time.

I know what it costs me to have my units in a dc in indianapolis, I know what the cost was for them and how long it takes to pay them off, and I know what bandwidth costs me and power and hands on support in the dc.   it's not cheap, I've got 4 machines in a rented cabinet...  LL has their own,  but looking at the servers they need.  30k+ each machine, that gets replaced on a repeating cycle.  

 

LL is going to make some money on them, that's very true, they are a for profit company and these prices are what they have set because it's what keeps the platform up and running and alive.  

 

Also,  my machines are from 2015,  each was 22k with teh configs that I ordered. 

server prices are not cheap, LL is not going to throw a desktop into  rack and go "there we go"

 

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

. 

server prices are not cheap, LL is not going to throw a desktop into  rack and go "there we go"

 

Although some days, it feels that way.😆

[FairreLilette]

7 hours ago, Lord Derryth said:

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).  

It looks like it's only sci-fi and flying space crafts.  I wouldn't be interested in any of that, not even for free.

SL has the most amazing creations here that my FAVORITES must have at least 300 hundred pages and MY WISHLIST quite a bit too.  I'm an artist, not a model plane flyer.  SL has art.  DU has model planes of some kind.

As far as the land being expensive, I dunno...Ashe Chung owns a lot of it...but I build something in SL just about every day or am in Photoshop to build and have always rented very nice places and not too expensive - five to ten dollars a month for my rentals.  You can rent for super cheap here too.  You can rent from a tent to a palace...it has all price ranges.   

 

[bigmoe Whitfield]

41 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

Although some days, it feels that way.😆

we once found a sim back in the old class 1-5 days that was hosting a website on it's ip,  we reported it and it vanished within a few hours, this was early on in SL though.    so that's a neat tidbit I figured I would share

[Madelaine McMasters]

9 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

As far as the land being expensive, I dunno...Ashe Chung owns a lot of it...but I build something in SL just about every day or am in Photoshop to build and have always rented very nice places and not too expensive - five to ten dollars a month for my rentals.  You can rent for super cheap here too.  You can rent from a tent to a palace...it has all price ranges.   

I rent a furnished scene-change skybox for L$50/wk. That's about US$10/yr.

[Ardy Lay]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

all that user generated content, cross-linked in countless user inventories.

That scares the hell out of me.  Assets are forever ...  until that Gamma ray comes along.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Ardy Lay

[Mollymews]

7 hours ago, animats said:

you have to do a lot of mining, refining, and manufacturing before you can build

there once was this 3D online poker room called PKR

i was on the beta and they asked for feedback. I asked how come I can't just buy the clothes for my avatar. Why do I have to grind the tables to get game credits to buy clothes. When I would be happy to pay for the clothes with real money. A company person replied and said nobody is going to do that and also this is a poker room and is intended that we make our money from the rake

i said that they were wrong about that. I get that things like chip trick gestures could be like game rewards but clothes ?  That this 3D environment is geared more toward a social environment.  And in a social environment then how we appear is more important to the players than how much they win or lose. That when win/lose action is the rational for players then the players can get more action a whole lot faster in a 2D poker room 

i never heard back, they never made it possible and the PKR room is no more

 

[nayeonwaitingfor]

I feel like it is not so much expensive as it is very easy to overdo things. Especially for human avatars who have a wide selection of just about everything. It would be easy to get in over your head pretty quickly and make Second Life.  I know a few people in-world who have no self control and will buy any and everything and then complain about how they are RL broke for the week. Don't do that, folks. 

[Ceka Cianci]

I like that it's My world, My imagination.. I looked at that DU for a bit.. It looks pretty limited in the Imagination department.

The good thing about SL is, it can be as inexpensive or as expensive as I want it to be, from totally free, to spending as much as I want.. There is just a multitude of more options here from what I seen.

[belindacarson]

I took a look at DU (as we all do to see what's the hubbub about), and the one thing that put me off right away was no free trial (even just a 1 day trial).

[Evah Baxton]

12 hours ago, Lord Derryth said:

In DU, you pay $6 a month

SL isn't expensive at all if you can kick a** at building and creating. You'll find that you aren't paying LL a dime for full regions. Possibly even making real cash profits. I'll assume that's not something you can do in DU.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Evah Baxton

[Maryanne Solo]

DU = Space stuff... 🙄🥴
Me & space stuff:

Edited September 22, 2020 by Maryanne Solo
I do like lavender as a colour tho <3

[Nick0678]

14 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. .... etc...  If you want a sim you must pay $300 a month.  ... etc ... All that money you spent on items INGAME will go bye bye.  The future for us doesn't look too bright.

The only money i ever paid for Second Life was 2EUR many years ago for the verification process of my credit card. Anything else such as my avatars, regions, skill gaming etc were all paid by the services i have provided to other Second Life users. Realistically speaking Second Life never cost me anything since 2009.

Of course it can become an expensive habit (it is a habit not a necessity) if someone gets carried away but the cost of it is always in relation to specific market target groups and considering the fact that Linden Lab was unable to provide more Private Regions for a long time it seems to me that it is doing well and there is a market demand.

Still Linden Lab gives the option to those who don't care about having regions or fancy stuff to enjoy socializing and have other activities at L$0 cost which is a smart move because it brings people in and makes Second Life more populated.

[Axel Naxos]

10 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

O meu é exatamente o oposto. Eu sou um membro Basic desde que entrei em 2007, nunca realmente tive a tentação de me tornar Premium. Aluguei lojas nos primeiros sete anos e aluguei um pequeno terreno para morar pela primeira vez em 2012. Comprei uma região de um amigo em 2014 e dependi dos aluguéis dela e da receita de scripts e gotejamento da minha loja MP para cobrir as taxas mensais de terreno. Exceto muito cedo, eu nunca tive que comprar L $.  

Raramente tive que enviar um caso de suporte. Quando o fiz, porém, tive uma resposta quase imediata, começando bem antes de ter tido um terreno. Nunca tive a impressão de estar em desvantagem como membro Basic.

I'm so jealous of you ... I'm sorry ... lol

[Axel Naxos]

10 minutes ago, Nick0678 said:

The only money i ever paid for Second Life was 2EUR many years ago for the verification process of my credit card. Anything else such as my avatars, regions, skill gaming etc were all paid by the services i have provided to other Second Life users. Realistically speaking Second Life never cost me anything since 2009.

Of course it can become an expensive habit (it is a habit not a necessity) if someone gets carried away but the cost of it is always in relation to specific market target groups and considering the fact that Linden Lab was unable to provide more Private Regions for a long time it seems to me that it is doing well and there is a market demand.

Still Linden Lab gives the option to those who don't care about having regions or fancy stuff to enjoy socializing and have other activities at L$0 cost which is a smart move because it brings people in and makes Second Life more populated.

Hell, I didn't even count these physical data from RL which also become expenses / investments ... especially in my case, I need a good machine only for SL, I'm not a player/gamer ... Well remembered these points ...

[Nick0678]

35 minutes ago, Axel Naxos said:

Hell, I didn't even count these physical data from RL which also become expenses / investments ... especially in my case, I need a good machine only for SL, I'm not a player/gamer ... Well remembered these points ...

I understand what you mean and that can be an extra expense, always depending on someones Second Life activities/habits/work.

 

Personally most of the time i login with a Sony Vaio I5 Gen 1 (ATI Radeon HD 5650 is still good enough to take photos in Ultra) so i rarely use my desktop PC. My friend who only likes to play skill games and dress her barbie doll uses a 2010 Toshiba. It really has to do with what someone likes to do in SL, then the total cost will go high or low accordingly.

[MaxMare]

SL does not offer any content really, the entire concept is users for users...Each mesh, every single animation, script, gadget was created by users.....as a content creator for SL I can tell you it is a LOT of work, it takes skill, expensive software and up to date hardware,  now add other expenses such as upload, MP tax, store rental, event participation fees and so on...if we couldn`t make a living here we wouldn`t be able to spend as much time focusing on this here, which would result in less content, in which case someone would come to forum and say how SL is boring and ppl should make more stuff! 

All that said, prices have never been lower than right now,  example: 10 years ago price for a prim house was around 2-7k L, nowadays t is barely up to 2k  for more elaborate product, basically higher quality for 3 times less money...

Weekly sale events let you purchase items released within this calendar year for as little as 50L (FLF, Saturday sale, energy weekend, hello tuesday just to name a few)...the biggest expense would be mesh body and head, but that`s not something you buy every other week and the price reflects that, the rest it literally in single digit numbers if we talk in USD...

You don`t need a whole sim to play with deco or build stuff...I`m sorry but your entire post sounds a lot like first world problems, poor me, I want luxury cause I feel entitled to it...not cool..

[FairreLilette]

9 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I rent a furnished scene-change skybox for L$50/wk. That's about US$10/yr.

I have too at times when I am looking for a place to rent.  I have rented places for 10 linden a week while house hunting...the 10 linden a week is like renting a dressing room where you can open boxes and try on demos.   

 

7 hours ago, nayeonwaitingfor said:

I feel like it is not so much expensive as it is very easy to overdo things. Especially for human avatars who have a wide selection of just about everything. It would be easy to get in over your head pretty quickly and make Second Life.  I know a few people in-world who have no self control and will buy any and everything and then complain about how they are RL broke for the week. Don't do that, folks. 

One thing I do notice about the over-spenders of SL is they don't take much time to really enjoy or appreciate the creations made here.  But, anything can be an addiction, even if played for free, if it makes one's real life suffer.  But, sometimes I do think buyers should take some time to really enjoy some of the things that are created here because as MaxMare said, it's a LOT of work.  Emphasis A LOT!   It  really is.   

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

As an alternative to the arguments put forward against the OP's complaint that SL is expensive, why not take a long hard look at the near-equivalent alternatives which are cheap? What happened to InWorldz? Great Canadian Grid? The multiple instances of Mr Pomposelli (sic) and quite a few others? They were far cheaper than SL for residents, but all that happened was they couldn't afford to survive the vicissitudes of fortune.

That's what you get for not getting your revenue model tuned to both operating costs and demand, uncertain futures.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

On 9/21/2020 at 9:05 PM, Lord Derryth said:

Why is Second Life expensive?

Waaat? Expensive?!?

I receive money from Second Life! Fake news!

But all jokes aside. For years I've had fun playing in SL, spending very little. The notion that you need to spend 300$ per months to enjoy Second Life is utterly preposterous. But then again, some people can enjoy life with a deck of cards or a wooden stick, while others will wither away without their 1200-$ smartphone.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Arduenn Schwartzman