Infrastructure Investment Update: Buy/Sell Fee Change and Land Pricing Effective Mar 6, 2023 DISCUSSION

[Love Zhaoying]

37 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

The REAL entity that this is helping is Tilia --- think on that :D.   

I was going in a different direction. Forcing payments to be in-world for land seems to me, bypasses Tillia. 

[Love Zhaoying]

26 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

why do they need to calculate the exchange fees for? Themself? thats really weird.
So it's no perk or progress at all .. only keeping money out of hands for being taxable? ( IF they manage to fool the IRS with it, as soon you can really pay services with tokens it aren't tokens anymore!) 

In one quote, it sounded as if LL was stating that specific rates would be used for land payments (compared to whatever the fluctuating rates may be). That theoretically benefits paying with L$ if the rate is "worse" otherwise. 

[Aethelwine]

We are all affected by inflationary costs in real life, all wanting pay rises to keep pace Linden Lab employees included. If anything I had thought costs to us might be higher. I know some landowners have been struggling and the 20$ reduction for them no doubt welcome. I can't help but wonder if sharing that further by tweaking tier costs might not have helped more.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Aethelwine

[Rick Nightingale]

That's what annoys me the most... not the rise as such, but the fact that land owners are getting a cut while we pay more so they can. Seems often the case though that those who have least are expected to give more to those who already have more.

[steeljane42]

22 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

That's what annoys me the most... not the rise as such, but the fact that land owners are getting a cut while we pay more so they can.

The price cut before the previous one (and the last I already didn't care to check) had all big and known estates decrease their prices. Land impact upgrade in 2016 also wasn't any different, I remember keeping the same parcel with the same tier, but getting more li (it was when when they've upgraded private regions from 15 to 20k and homesteads from 3.75k to 5k).

I suppose in the following days, perhaps weeks, we'll see if the same big estates decided to lower the fees again, or to keep it for themselves this time around. If even one really big land lord will do this, then others will probably be forced to follow or their prices won't be competitive.

Edited March 7, 2023 by steeljane42

[Caeruleiae]

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

The rates have increased. I'd sure hope the Lab has reduced their cloud costs, though, by improving efficiency compared to wherever they landed after migration.

This is basically the point I was trying to make earlier. Yes, aws costs have gone up, but we-people and companies using them, knew they were going up. We had ample time to prepare and reduce our own costs, or at least make the best use of the services we pay for. Ll doesn't do that, and has never done that, since the day they migrated to the services. Before that, they didn't make the best use of the physical server spaces they used, either. Their costs wouldn't be great if they mitigated them properly. It doesn't even have to come down to passing those costs to consumers, just a matter of actually using what they pay for efficiently. That alone would increase their profits tremendously, but they're ignoring the big picture and I still can't figure out why, or even how they can be this obtuse about both long and short term profit. They're a business, but they don't behave like one, at all, it's very foreign to me. You can't clamor about needing more profit when they ignore some of the most obvious answers. 

 I don't believe aws cost increases have anything to do with it, and neither should anyone else. The costs honestly haven't gone up that significantly, especially for a company that had the kind of profit margin ll had-and probably still has. That doesn't even include the potential profit margin if ll did a better job. 

I imagine if my company did something even close to that we'd lose a lot of our customers. They expect that we know what we're doing. They expect that we work efficiently and only increase costs to them when absolutely necessary with as much transparency as we've always had. I never understand companies that fail so grandly at something so simple. 

 

[Quistess Alpha]

1 hour ago, Alwin Alcott said:

IF they manage to fool the IRS with it, as soon you can really pay services with tokens it aren't tokens anymore!

if anything it's not "fooling the IRS" but avoiding double tax. someone paid tax to buy the L$; that tax should still "count" if the L$ is used to pay for land, but 'cashing out' and paying with USD incurs a second tax (because of the odd accounting).

Most countries/nationalities have agreements with each-other that basically amount to "only one country should tax a specific transaction" If, say, an American pays US sales tax and buys L$ then gives the L$ to a European who spends the L$ on land, arguably the European ~'should have' been able to get a rebate on the US sales tax if they also paid European taxes.

That's only my 2L$ though.

[Love Zhaoying]

I don't have a lot of sympathy for those who complain that the "Grandfathered" Region fees are not changing.

Because: They have been paying the lowest fees all along, and their fees have been "locked".  If we "unlock" their fees, is it then OK if those fees go back "UP" in the future"? It hardly seems fair if their fees should only go "down", never "up" like everyone else's fees.

My bottom line is: "Grandfathered" implies "not-changing" in the first place. Perhaps, you could happy that you are still paying the lowest fees.

[Qie Niangao]

48 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I was going in a different direction. Forcing payments to be in-world for land seems to me, bypasses Tillia. 

Oh, that's very interesting.

I was thinking the in-world payments made the transaction more explicitly a "game token" exchange for "game resouces" (land), skirting legal implications of having the L$ and US$ buying the same thing on the same exchange (Although… they did that on Marketplace at one time, didn't they? So I'm probably completely out to lunch on this.)

One of the "subtleties" of the revealed strategy, though, is surely an extra incentive for Premium Plus; I definitely agree with that.

Also, it's kind of naive, the way this thread pegs "winners and losers" as if cheaper land—if it draws more players and landowners—doesn't benefit content creators. It is, in fact, a huge win for creators. Whether SL is a game or not, its economy is definitely not a zero-sum game.

(Granted, some folks will spend part of their "SL entertainment budget" on land that they'd otherwise spend on content, but as a general phenomenon RL home sales don't cannibalize RL appliance sales, for example; exactly the opposite, and in spades. And moreover, if land costs less to own, that will ultimately free up more budget to spend on content anyway; every past reduction in Estate land fees "trickled down" to parcel-level tenants eventually, I see no reason to think this time will be any different.)

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Oh, that's very interesting.

I was thinking the in-world payments made the transaction more explicitly a "game token" exchange for "game resouces" (land), skirting legal implications of having the L$ and US$ buying the same thing on the same exchange (Although… they did that on Marketplace at one time, didn't they? So I'm probably completely out to lunch on this.)

Yes, that's my point. By just accepting "L$"/"Tokens" directly.  Forcing an in-world token makes it more "obvious" that this is a "L$/Tokens" transaction not a L$=>USD transaction.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

8 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Also, it's kind of naive, the way this thread pegs "winners and losers" as if cheaper land—if it draws more players and landowners—doesn't benefit content creators.

Yes, and ironic are the complaints of "but, it's only ONE region!" Well, most smaller creators probably don't have or need a lot of Regions. In any case, non-creator "Region Owners" will have more hopefully "disposable income" to spend on content creators.

[Phil Deakins]

12 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Every individual creator I know is on the poverty line.

Every single one.

Since time immemorial in SL (at least since I joined in late 2006) being a creator in SL has been an enjoyable hobby for every creator. Judging by forum posts through the years, creators have been delighted if they could sell enough to pay their tier. Many did and many didn't, and a very few made very good RL money from it. All enjoyed their creating in SL. You seem to wish to convey 'hardship' with your "poverty line" phrase, as it would be in RL. But that's not the case here. Being "on the poverty line" in SL means only earning somewhere around the amount needed for the tier. In other words, a very enjoyable hobby. So every single creator that you know enjoys the hobby of being a creator.

13 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

People are breaking themselves to keep this place afloat.

If you mean that creators are working hard ("breaking themselves") to keep SL afloat, you are very much mistaken. No creator works hard to keep SL afloat. Creators create as an enjoyable hobby, and some even as an RL livelihood, but not to keep SL afloat. Creating for that purpose has never been necessary, and it still isn't.

@everyone

1: There are some posts in this thread that are all about the posters - how the changes will affect the posters, and about how, as a creator, they can't afford the L$ transaction changes. My comment about those is, if you can't afford it, stop doing it. LL doesn't have a responsibility to ensure that you are able to continue profitably. It's your hobby, and whether or not you continue doing it is your decision. (When it's more than a hobby, the changes are affordable).

2: I am the opposite of a Linden Lab supporter. Because of how they've treated their  paying customers through the years, I wouldn't lift a finger to help the company. But I will say this about them. They continue to provide a system for anyone to enjoy and, if they change it in such ways that the system is no longer enjoyable to some people, then it's up to those people to either leave or stop doing what they no longer enjoy. By all means, suggest improvements and/or alternatives to LL, but LL doesn't have a responsibility to make sure that all users continue to be satisfied when changes are made. I have no doubt that they would like all users to be satisfied but they are not responsible to ensure that it happens.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

13 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Every individual creator I know is on the poverty line.

Every single one.

Since time immemorial in SL (at least since I joined in late 2006) being a creator in SL has been an enjoyable hobby for every creator. Judging by forum posts through the years, creators have been delighted if they could sell enough to pay their tier. Many did and many didn't, and a very few made very good RL money from it. All enjoyed their creating in SL. You seem to wish to convey 'hardship' with your "poverty line" phrase, as it would be in RL. But that's not the case here. Being "on the poverty line" in SL means only earning somewhere around the amount needed for the tier. In other words, a very enjoyable hobby. So every single creator that you know enjoys the hobby of being a creator.

Thanks, Phil. 

[Phil Deakins]

My pleasure, Love

[Love Zhaoying]

10 hours ago, Teresa Firelight said:

For this post, I won't discuss how furious I am that they are not reducing grandfathered region pricing. 

What I will say is that either someone is very bad at math or there is a typo in their pricing for the new "feature" of paying for regions with L$. (I will give LL the benefit of the doubt that there is an error here rather than LL intentionally trying to deceive us about pricing.)

They say the price is a fixed 250 L$ per USD. But if you divide any of the L$ prices by the USD price, you get 275 $L per USD.

So, which is wrong?? is the price L$ 250 per USD and all the values in the payment table are wrong? or is it L$ 275 per USD and the explanation just above the table is incorrect? If they are indeed charging us L$ 275 per USD, I think paying by lindens is more expensive than cashing out the money and depositing it in your bank. 

Example: a full grandfathered region is $179.00 per month. The monthly tier according to the table is $L 49,225. If you divide 49,225/179.00 you get 275 L$ per USD, not 250. However if you go to the quick sell (market price) and type in 49,225 -- you get (before fee) 193.58 and after the fee is applied, you get $183.40. and 183.40 is more than the monthly fee of $179.

 

 

I think one thing you may have confused is: The LindEx exchange rate is NOT (theoretically) stable, but LL is promising a "stable" rate for Land payments in L$.  That only means the "value of your L$ payment to LL" is stable; not that you can go buy more L$ at that "stable rate" for the payment.

I do understand that the different rates of 275L/USD vs. 250L/USD are confusing. Perhaps as you suggest, one is incorrect.

[Charolotte Caxton]

1 hour ago, Rick Nightingale said:

That's what annoys me the most... not the rise as such, but the fact that land owners are getting a cut while we pay more so they can. Seems often the case though that those who have least are expected to give more to those who already have more.

Hi, Rick, how am I getting your money by owning land? I may have missed an important point. I get no extra money, in fact, I pay money, so I do not understand. If we get a cut where's mine! lol 🥰 just playing, I don't want your money.

[Rick Nightingale]

@Charolotte Caxton The anouncement says (my highlighting):

Quote

This latest land price reduction, increased development of Second Life features, improvements, and an unfortunate combination of world-wide economic factors including inflation, all bring additional costs to our operations. We’ve spent time considering ways to manage these costs to minimize the overall burden on our Residents. We decided to absorb many of the costs and distribute some by making a change to Linden Dollar buy and sell fees.

You are getting a cut - reduced region prices.

LL has chosen to drop the price to people paying for regions, while increasing the costs of converting L$ to us to fund that. They have also said that regions can be paid for using L$ without the need to convert it to US$ first, saving the transactions fees. I don't know what cut of that is LL's vs Tilia's, but it's another 'loss' to be clawed back.

It just seems unfair to give to one lot, while taking from another to pay for it. If LL is struggling to make ends meet... just raise prices across the board. I would complain a lot less about that.

Edit: Region costs have been dropped U$20 per month. The change to conversion costs means my annual cost is going from US$15 to US$30. Only (another) $15 increase per year - but that increase (and more for buying L$) is going to hit a lot more people.

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Rick Nightingale

[Charolotte Caxton]

Just now, Rick Nightingale said:

@Charolotte Caxton The anouncement says (my highlighting):

You are getting a cut - reduced region prices.

LL has chosen to drop the price to people paying for regions, while increasing the costs of converting L$ to us to fund that. They have also said that regions can be paid for using L$ without the need to convert it to US$ first, saving the transactions fees. I don't know what cut of that is LL's vs Tilia's, but it's another 'loss' to be clawed back.

It just seems unfair to give to one lot, while taking from another to pay for it. If LL is struggling to make ends meet... just raise prices across the board. I would complain a lot less about that.

 

Thank you, but my feels is that it is unfair to say land owners are taking your money, that's LL, not me. (in the larger context, not you vs me). LL is not struggling, Google SF.

[Rick Nightingale]

@Charolotte CaxtonI don't think I said that you were taking my money - I know you aren't the one doing this and have nothing whatsoever against you.

It's LL's doing, but the effect is still the same that region owners are saving money and others are paying for that - LL says that quite clearly.

And I know LL isn't struggling... so why the need to increase prices... greed!

It even gave me the thought, long before this conversation, that LL was trying to set region owners and non-owners against each other when I read the announcement.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Rick Nightingale
stray apostrophes

[Charolotte Caxton]

Just now, Rick Nightingale said:

@Charolotte CaxtonI don't think I said that you were taking my money - I know you aren't the one doing this and have nothing whatsoever against you.

It's LL's doing, but the effect is still the same that region owners are saving money and other's are paying for that - LL says that quite clearly.

And I know LL isn't struggling... so why the need to increase prices... greed!

Thank you. I respect your opinion, thank you.

[Love Zhaoying]

I wonder, (what it would take for LL to) / (if LL will ever) .. change the Mainland Tier structure and payment methods similarly.

If the "majority" of users are Mainland owners..then any changes there would help more users.

Stated differently: Why are Private Region owners the only ones to benefit from these changes?  It seems on the surface, that it is to encourage Private Region ownership.

Reducing "ownership costs" for Mainland would encourage more "Land Barons" to possibly have lower Rents..which may encourage more Renters and help the SL Economy. Plus, the Mainland "owner" Tier fees go straight to LL just like the Private Region fees do.

 

[Phil Deakins]

2 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

And I know LL isn't struggling... so why the need to increase prices... greed!

LL is not a not-for-profit organisation. Companies exist to make profits and companies frequently do things to increase profits. It's what companies do. They don't reach a certain profit level and decide to stick there because it's enough. They try to increase it. Increasing profits means that their workers can have raises. You'd like that, I think. And that more people can be employed. I think you'd like that too. It also makes expansion possible. So why the use of the judgemental word "greed" in this case?

Side note: In the past, LL has had make drastic cuts to their workforce. Perhaps, if they increase their profits enough, they could add to the workforce, as I am absolutely sure they would want to do.

[Rowan Amore]

23 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

@Charolotte Caxton The anouncement says (my highlighting):

You are getting a cut - reduced region prices.

LL has chosen to drop the price to people paying for regions, while increasing the costs of converting L$ to us to fund that. They have also said that regions can be paid for using L$ without the need to convert it to US$ first, saving the transactions fees. I don't know what cut of that is LL's vs Tilia's, but it's another 'loss' to be clawed back.

It just seems unfair to give to one lot, while taking from another to pay for it. If LL is struggling to make ends meet... just raise prices across the board. I would complain a lot less about that.

Edit: Region costs have been dropped U$20 per month. The change to conversion costs means my annual cost is going from US$15 to US$30. Only (another) $15 increase per year - but that increase (and more for buying L$) is going to hit a lot more people.

 

You're assuming that a person who owns a region isn't also purchasing Ls.  The large land companies might make out but your average SL resident owning one island for their own personal use is saving $20 and still paying the increase in fees to purchase Ls to make other purchases for their island.  Unless said land owner is a premium member AND a content creator, they aren't really saving all that much and certainly not at your expense.

The only ones making out in the deal are large land companies.  Let's hope they pass the savings down the line to make up for the rise in Lindex fees.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Rowan Amore

[Qie Niangao]

14 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I wonder, (what it would take for LL to) / (if LL will ever) .. change the Mainland Tier structure and payment methods similarly.

Well, back in November, there was a significant tier reduction for Mainland, coincidental with the Premium Plus announcement.

It wasn't quite what I'd been hoping for,  but Mainland costs reduced roughly on the scale of this current Estate fees reduction, I think. So it's like they're staggering one then the other (possibly testing what one reduction does to the other's market?)

I wonder, though, whether we'll be able to pay L$-denominated Mainland tier in-world someday.

Come to think of it, at one point there was talk of being able to use Premium bonus tier towards Estate fees or even pass-thru for rents. (That didn't happen yet, though, right? I lose track.)

Edited March 7, 2023 by Qie Niangao
"Plus" not "Premium Plus". Nothing confusing there, nope, not a bit.

[Charolotte Caxton]

27 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

@Charolotte Caxton The anouncement says (my highlighting):

You are getting a cut - reduced region prices.

LL has chosen to drop the price to people paying for regions, while increasing the costs of converting L$ to us to fund that. They have also said that regions can be paid for using L$ without the need to convert it to US$ first, saving the transactions fees. I don't know what cut of that is LL's vs Tilia's, but it's another 'loss' to be clawed back.

It just seems unfair to give to one lot, while taking from another to pay for it. If LL is struggling to make ends meet... just raise prices across the board. I would complain a lot less about that.

Edit: Region costs have been dropped U$20 per month. The change to conversion costs means my annual cost is going from US$15 to US$30. Only (another) $15 increase per year - but that increase (and more for buying L$) is going to hit a lot more people.

 

Thank you for this information, I hope Region Owners, who literally make Second Life (minus Mainland, Moles, etc), are able to make your loss worth it. So an extra twenty dollars! lets hit the MP!