Buy Fee Change Discussion

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Drayke Newall said:

Hmm what benefit would that give though?

It's an easy value add for LL.

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

11 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Opensim regions have gone down in price for those who rent them and the code to run the servers is mostly updated by one developer who works for free. Other than the parts of the code meant for extracting money from the residents, there is nothing in S/L that Opensim does not have. It kind of hints what the development money is going towards.

Oh this is wrong on so many levels, really... first of all Opensim does not scale well. It's pretty much unlikely that with the current code base it would be possible to run a grid as large as SL on Opensim base. 

Then Opensim has stuff, which SL has not and sounds good in theory, in reality it's just an utter mess. Like Hypergrid teleports, three or so different iterations around, and all of them have their own set of problems which lead to a big fragmentation of the Opensim space. Indeed something which SL has not, but fragmentation makes it painful to use and pretty useless.

And of course there's stuff SL has, which Opensim has not, like a good and quick physics engine. SL uses Havok, Opensim's physics engines are really low quality compared to that.

SL has pathfinding, which Opensim has not. And most of all Opensim is was too fragmented overall, and has not really a lot of people. So that's the most important thing SL has which Opensim has not: lots of people.

16 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Why do people seem to forget that LL is in business to make money?  

Nice try of derailing, but no one forgets about that. It's not about that LL tries to make money, which always is quite clear in that world. It's about that they are increasing fees in a type of manner and scale which is completely unparalleled before without providing any visible added value to the platform, so it just makes them look like the money grabbers which at the moment they are.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Bartholomew Gallacher

[Coffee Pancake]

7 hours ago, Bartholomew Gallacher said:

Oh this is wrong on so many levels, really... first of all Opensim does not scale well. It's pretty much unlikely that with the current code base it would be possible to run a grid as large as SL on Opensim base. 

If SL died, the few of us who even know how to access it will DDoS it into the ground inside of an hour. Over the following weeks, as the rest slowly realize there is something like SL and they all decide to try it out, it will say dead.

None of it scales like SL and it would need some serious engineering to make it even close.

7 hours ago, Bartholomew Gallacher said:

Then Opensim has stuff, which SL has not and sounds good in theory, in reality it's just an utter mess. Like Hypergrid teleports, three or so different iterations around, and all of them have their own set of problems which lead to a big fragmentation of the Opensim space. Indeed something which SL has not, but fragmentation makes it painful to use and pretty useless.

Nothing like a dozen different region versions all in active use. Fragmentation is a very small word for the current mess.

7 hours ago, Bartholomew Gallacher said:

And of course there's stuff SL has, which Opensim has not, like a good and quick physics engine. SL uses Havok, Opensim's physics engines are really low quality compared to that.

Wait, ours is "good and quick" .. oh no. 

 

 

[Rowan Amore]

7 hours ago, Bartholomew Gallacher said:

Nice try of derailing, but no one forgets about that. It's not about that LL tries to make money, which always is quite clear in that world. It's about that they are increasing fees in a type of manner and scale which is completely unparalleled before without providing any visible added value to the platform, so it just makes them look like the money grabbers which at the moment they are.

Derail?   Not really but ok.  

Perhaps you can explain in detail, how LL can increase revenue.  They offered last names at a price you didn't like.  Something that ONLY effects those who choose to purchase one.  What do you suggest?  It's not as if they have a ton of options.  Anything they do will have an effect on someone, somehow.

The fee increase has only been in place for a short time.  I'm sure LL would like to wait and see how this is effecting their bottom line before promising things that they may not be able to deliver.

As a business, LL has expenses just like any other.  Salaries, health insurance premiums, utilities, advertising, etc.  Aside from advertising and salaries, they have little control over what is paid out.  Just like me and you, the bill comes in and you pay it.  Maybe you have suggestions on how they can decrease expenditures?  Cut employee health care?  Turn off the AC every other day?

 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

As a business, LL has expenses just like any other.  Salaries, health insurance premiums, utilities, advertising, etc.  Aside from advertising and salaries, they have little control over what is paid out.  Just like me and you, the bill comes in and you pay it.  Maybe you have suggestions on how they can decrease expenditures?  Cut employee health care?  Turn off the AC every other day?

Well, they don't have the Sansar expense anymore, that wasn't just some half assed side project with a couple of people attached. 

[Rowan Amore]

Just now, Coffee Pancake said:

Well, they don't have the Sansar expense anymore, that wasn't just some half assed side project with a couple of people attached. 

True but that was just sold last year, if I remember correctly.  Right as the pandemic was starting.  It's been a year of change for LL, no doubt.  I'll wait and see how things progress over the next year.  Hopefully, the influx of revenue will mean some positive changes.  

[Noelle Delaunay]

13 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

Off the top of my head how about they release the need of having a full region to buy the cheaper homestead?

Why does this requirement exist anyway? I can only imagine the following:

LL makes a lot of money with a full region. LL makes only little money with a homestead.

I take it that if the requirement fell, many full regions would get converted into homesteads and LL would lose money.

 

In the end, if everyone could afford their own sim, it would have two significant effects:

1) Boosting the economy, as people want to decorate their sims and therefore spend more money on sim decorations. Sim decorations will also become prettier as a side effect as there's more money to make.

2) SL would become much prettier. Right now everywhere you look at it's a mess, simply because random stuff is build next to random stuff, with a very few exceptions of themed landscapes. Even if people were too lazy to build and decorate there would be lots of prebuild full sim deco to buy. In the end this could actually be the only way out of the problem that a new user flies over mainland and thinks.. how ugly is this game?

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Noelle Delaunay said:

Why does this requirement exist anyway? I can only imagine the following:

LL makes a lot of money with a full region. LL makes only little money with a homestead.

I take it that if the requirement fell, many full regions would get converted into homesteads and LL would lose money.

 

In the end, if everyone could afford their own sim, it would have two significant effects:

1) Boosting the economy, as people want to decorate their sims and therefore spend more money on sim decorations. Sim decorations will also become prettier as a side effect as there's more money to make.

2) SL would become much prettier. Right now everywhere you look at it's a mess, simply because random stuff is build next to random stuff, with a very few exceptions of themed landscapes. Even if people were too lazy to build and decorate there would be lots of prebuild full sim deco to buy. In the end this could actually be the only way out of the problem that a new user flies over mainland and thinks.. how ugly is this game?

This sounds great but any money they pulled in would be lost by the real estate companies who rent parcels on private estates.  No renters, no need to own that entire region so it goes back.   Making homesteads available without owning a regular region probably would have no effect whatsoever on mainland.  After 12 years, this is the first year I've owned a parcel on mainland that I use as my primary home.  I've chosen to rent up until now.  

People either like mainland or they don't.  

[Drayke Newall]

1 hour ago, Noelle Delaunay said:

Why does this requirement exist anyway? I can only imagine the following:

The requirement was made if I remember correctly due to the potential to have a massive impact on their old physical servers (hopefully someone who knows more as to why can chime in and say as more than likely my memory has failed me). Those no longer exist and all regions are now one AWS meaning that it wont have a negative impact on the servers due to scalability.

Quote

I take it that if the requirement fell, many full regions would get converted into homesteads and LL would lose money.

This just wont happen. Homesteads only allow for 20 avatars and 5000LI. Land Barons make their money by splitting full regions (not homesteads) into lots of rentable space both on the land and in rentable skyboxes and therefore will keep those and they own 90% of them. The majority of users will still rent land from the barons and not be interested in the homestead as they can pay $50/month for their little parcel from a land baron as opposed to $109/month + $149 (once off) setup fee.

Large scale shopping areas like say mesh body creators will also not convert their full regions due to the avatar limit, same goes for event stores, large scale shops etc due to LI limits homesteads offer. Clubs will still need full regions as will the vast majority of users interested in making money in Second Life.

Homesteads are intended for light commercial or residential hence the low avatar restriction and low LI limit (i.e. you have your house on the homestead as well as your own sandbox for building and a little store of the things you make). Also small communities (like small RP) that only see max 20 avatars on at a time would benefit from it.

Additionally, some people just trust having tier with LL over a land baron that can pack up shop and take your sim away at little to no notice.

Quote

2) SL would become much prettier. Right now everywhere you look at it's a mess, simply because random stuff is build next to random stuff, with a very few exceptions of themed landscapes. Even if people were too lazy to build and decorate there would be lots of prebuild full sim deco to buy. In the end this could actually be the only way out of the problem that a new user flies over mainland and thinks.. how ugly is this game?

As to mainland even if the homestead restriction is removed, it will stay as it has for over a decade - a barren desert of a bygone era that no one wants to rent in due to lag, horrible builds next door and little to no land editing.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Noelle Delaunay]

11 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

People either like mainland or they don't. 

It's something that I don't get, like, at all. I'd just need to see one ugly, larger object inside of my draw distance and it destroys my immersion completely. I've come from a background of RP sims that have been beautifully build, and when I rent a home I'm looking out for themed places where everything fits together. I get it that it might sound rather condescending to say that 99,9% of mainland looks ugly to me, and I do not want to sound condescending, but it's just randomness next to randomness. I can see the philosophical approach, the possibility that everyone can build what they want (pretty much) and live connected next to each other, that sounds cool. I can also see that it's not easy to find good looking places that are actually well affordable, definitely. But in the end I'd see the goal to make it possible for everyone to be able to get an affordable place in a beautifully designed landscape.

[Quistess Alpha]

56 minutes ago, Noelle Delaunay said:

But in the end I'd see the goal to make it possible for everyone to be able to get an affordable place in a beautifully designed landscape.

The problem is that there's a conflict between freedom and expectations of "beauty". I rather like my prim-based tower with a spiral staircase, but If I just plopped it in the middle of Beli. most would probably say it looks like **** and ask me to do something more 'in-theme'. The freedom to choose what your house looks like, and the freedom to dictate what other people's houses and lands look like (within reason) are mutually-incompatible. and I for one like being able to build whatever I want without someone else saying I can't, and living in a house I can't structurally modify would feel quite off to me.

I think SL as a whole needs both mainland proper and Belisaria.

[Drayke Newall]

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Perhaps you can explain in detail, how LL can increase revenue.  They offered last names at a price you didn't like.  Something that ONLY effects those who choose to purchase one.  What do you suggest?  It's not as if they have a ton of options.  Anything they do will have an effect on someone, somehow.

Come on Rowan, you cannot be that naive. There was absolutely 100% no need for it to be locked behind premium. It is an automatic process where a person applies to change the name and they are granted it all without LL staff intervention. LL's excuse of not wanting it to be used to often is as equally ridiculous and short sighted given their options.

As to the price, it is an absurd price to pay for a name change in a digital non physical environment and has no logic in it whatsoever and shows just how out of touch LL is. There is no game, platform or internet service that charges more than $15 USD for a name change. Linden Lab charges over triple that price. To put it into perspective, in some countries and even in some US states it costs less to change your real name which does require physical staff to process, paperwork etc.

What is going to earn LL more money? 

1. Keep the resident last names for new sign-ups and then charge $15 for a name change (for only those that want it) and restrict a name change for 3 months (or even 6 months) after it is bought or
2. charge $53.95 USD minimum for one which doesn't even take into account that in some countries it is even higher with exchange rates. For example it costs $72.10 for Australians.

So what if people change their name every 6 months. LL is the first company I have seen that is actually worried more about people changing their last name to often than the profit it would bring if they did.

You ask for other methods they could make more money other than increasing fees which past evidence shows has never worked for Linden Lab. I have given you 2 already, releasing homestead's restriction and doing #1 above, but...

• How about they provide a basic premium under the current one, charge $5 per month and it just gives you a Linden Home and nothing extra not even including the option to have a mainland parcel instead.
• How about they offer their current premium with more useful incentives and not just useless fluff to entice a larger uptake of it.
• How about they offer a higher premium and charge $30 per month for it and aimed at content creators where they have their upload fees removed.
• How about they pull their finger out and actually give the ever elusive new higher super duper premium that has been in the works for 2 years!
• How about they offer as part of the partnering system in Second Life to allow for people to pay an extra $50 to get their (both accounts) own "married" last name of their choice or pick from the standard last name list. i.e either offer a custom name or at least advertise the name change option when partnering for more exposure.
• How about rather than just offering 2 region options they open it up for customisation where you can buy addon packs to increase LI or avatar limits. For example pay an extra $20/month for an extra 10 users or an extra 1000LI or whatever to homesteads. In the case of full regions pay a once off fee of $50 to reduce your avatar limit but increase your LI by 1000 and vice versa.
• Offer incentives for people who sell on marketplace to actually rent a parcel of land and have a inworld store. i.e if they have an inworld store they get a reduction in marketplace fees. Tier will always get LL more cash than marketplace fees would.

There are so many options available to Linden Lab to increase their revenue and increase their userbase but they just dont think outside the box and relative to what people expect.

[Sid Nagy]

It is a take it or leave it situation IMHO.
Nobody forces you to buy L$, change your name, pay upload fees, lease land from LL or the barons etc. etc.
SL is a take it or leave it game.
LL and only LL decides how they run their show (within the lines drawn by the US Laws of course).

Do I like the fee changes?
Nope.

Do I understand why they do it?
Yup. Generaly people are in business to make a decent profit out of it.

Do I accept them and shell out the extra Euros?
Yes, so far I do, because I can justify it to myself.

Is that a guaranty that I will accept changes in the future?
Nope. That depends on how much I still want/need/desire SL then.

Would I do it differently when at the wheel?
Yes,yes,yes. But it is not my circus and not my show.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Rowan Amore]

Apparently the fee isn't too absurd as hundreds of people have used it.  Me included.  I know people who went premium just so they could.  I'd say it was kind of brilliant.  Speaking of the last names, to clarify.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Rowan Amore

[Rowan Amore]

7 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

It is a take it or leave it situation IMHO.
Nobody forces you to buy L$, change your name, pay upload fees, lease land from LL or the barons etc. etc.
SL is a take it or leave it game.
LL and only LL decides how they run their show (within the lines drawn by the US Laws of course).

Do I like the fee changes?
Nope.

Do I understand why they do it?
Yup. Generaly people are in business to make a decent profit out of it.

Do I accept them and shell out the extra Euros?
Yes, so far I do, because I can justify it to myself.

Is that a guaranty that I will accept changes in the future?
Nope. That depends on how much I still want/need/desire SL then.

Would I do it differently when at the wheel?
Yes,yes,yes. But it is not my circus and not my show.

Totally THIS!!

 

[Arielle Popstar]

8 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

It is a take it or leave it situation IMHO.
Nobody forces you to buy L$, change your name, pay upload fees, lease land from LL or the barons etc. etc.
SL is a take it or leave it game.
LL and only LL decides how they run their show (within the lines drawn by the US Laws of course).

Do I like the fee changes?
Nope.

Do I understand why they do it?
Yup. Generaly people are in business to make a decent profit out of it.

Do I accept them and shell out the extra Euros?
Yes, so far I do, because I can justify it to myself.

Is that a guaranty that I will accept changes in the future?
Nope. That depends on how much I still want/need/desire SL then.

Would I do it differently when at the wheel?
Yes,yes,yes. But it is not my circus and not my show.

On the User Group page it says this:

"User groups are product or community focused and each one is led by the product manager or community manager. Our goals are to make it easier for you to find the user group, or groups, that you want to participate in and for us to listen more closely to your needs and ideas. The user group program is about opening up more lines of communication. Most user groups are public and include inworld meetings, JIRA sections, and sometimes a Twitter feed, an SL Forum, or an SL email list. It's up to the user group lead and the core Resident team how they want to communicate with one another. The discussions will be open, direct, and focus more on your needs, new features, and be more forward-looking."

So from that I get the sense that LL values input from the residents, looking for our needs and ideas. Not everyone can make it to those meetings and even if we could, there is no log kept of them so this is actually a better medium then those groups for communicating to LL what it is we as residents would like to see and what we are not happy with. It's all good imo.

[Sid Nagy]

LL can listen and listen, but whatever they do, they will please some and disappoint others at the same time.
My pet peeves and wish list is differently than the ones from all the thousands of other customers and visa versa.

There will always people cheer and others will whine, whatever LL decides to do.

And don't believe too much of marketing blahblahblah in general.
There are even people praying to a wall at a certain place in the world, because some said it helps.
And they think it helps.
I don't.

A business adviser costs  € 100 and upwards an hour + VAT.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

What is going to earn LL more money? 

1. Keep the resident last names for new sign-ups and then charge $15 for a name change (for only those that want it) and restrict a name change for 3 months (or even 6 months) after it is bought or
2. charge $53.95 USD minimum for one which doesn't even take into account that in some countries it is even higher with exchange rates. For example it costs $72.10 for Australians.

THIS.

Those of who changed our names did it while biting our tongues because we had been waiting for this feature for years.

The price is insane and well beyond what the vast majority of users are prepared to pay, something the huge numbers in world with random characters and numbers in their name demonstrates.

It should be $15 for everyone, no premium required.

It should be included as a perk for annual memberships, +1 name change per year.

[Noelle Delaunay]

45 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Apparently the fee isn't too absurd as hundreds of people have used it.

You could hear from various comments that LL is pretty happy about how it's worked out in combination with the limited last names.

[Drayke Newall]

5 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

It is a take it or leave it situation IMHO.
Nobody forces you to buy L$, change your name, pay upload fees, lease land from LL or the barons etc. etc.
SL is a take it or leave it game.
LL and only LL decides how they run their show (within the lines drawn by the US Laws of course).

I wont argue with what you have said as you are correct. No one forces people to do such things, however it is in Linden Labs best interest and the user community for LL to make a large profit as it allows them to do more to make SL better and modern. The fact that they see raising Linden purchasing fees is going to give them more flexibility and profit than removing ridiculous restrictions to fundamental systems that people will purchase for a higher fee and multiple times is just silly. Not to mention doing both would be even better but not at insane prices.

I am not against them raising their fees. What I am against is them making systems that could give them far more cash and then locking them behind braindead ideas that reduces the potential uptake to single digit percentages or literally pricing a feature many people want so high that the majority of their users cant pay.

5 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Apparently the fee isn't too absurd as hundreds of people have used it.  Me included.  I know people who went premium just so they could.  I'd say it was kind of brilliant.  Speaking of the last names, to clarify.

If it was so brilliant a move and made (and continues to) them a lot of money, then why did they have to increase $L purchasing fees a year after they introduced that brilliant money making name change system?

As @Coffee Pancake stated above, 99% of users did it begrudgingly. You specifically asked how Linden Lab could make more money other than increasing fees yet say in response 'but some people bought the name change with that price' missing the point just like LL have.

Providing a service that literally has no impact on Linden Lab (it is a fire and forget feature) to a wider audience for a cheaper price will give more profit than charging a larger price and lock it behind premium in the hopes people will stay premium which they dont.

Their current system reaches probably 2% of Second Life's touted 70+million accounts and will reach a peak if it hasn't already. Opening it up to all users, lowering its cost and advertising it in specific places were people would want a name change like new users or a partner would reach 100% of their client base as well as new users.

Edited July 7, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Sid Nagy]

Maybe the Tilia fees had to be raised because Tilia is operating independent from SL now and has to show its own positive numbers in the books.

[Coffee Pancake]

Whenever we buy or sell L$, a staffer has to carry them from the LL side of the office to the Tilia side of the office on an ipad.

[Llanhunter]

Late in this discussion

the word that is most appropriate is

EXTORTION

 

there is no justification for such a dramatic increase except greed

[bigmoe Whitfield]

38 minutes ago, Llanhunter said:

Late in this discussion

the word that is most appropriate is

EXTORTION

 

there is no justification for such a dramatic increase except greed

Fee's go up on LL's end, LL is going to pass them along to us, LL is also going to look at current trends and adjust them accordingly like any business would do,  Greed...  if they was greedy this virtual world would be dead, they are not greedy, they are keeping the lights on and themselves in business.  period.

[Llanhunter]

The real issue here is that it takes advantage of people who become enmeshed in this world of sl. Maybe we can say we are addicted and so have no choice. That is much harder for some than others. You can say its a business, but to the users it is a life and now it costs them a lot more to improve or even simply live that life. No other business I deal with has ever jacked up fees to this level in one hit. Banks wouldnt dare.

So please explain to us all in plain language without the marketing hype how Linden thinks there is a benefit to anyone in any way shape or form in creating hardship.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Llanhunter