Why were regular region prices cut but grandfathered ones were not?

[Teresa Firelight]

LL announced they cut prices on regions from $229 to $209 but they did not make any cut to the grandfathered regions. Those of us with grandfathered regions have paid a large premium for them up front, and have held onto them for MANY years, pay money every month for all that time.

The price difference between a grandfathered region and a regular region is ONLY $30 USD a month now.

It feels like they are saying, "we dont care about people who have been faithfully paying and supporting LL for a very long time."

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Teresa Firelight

[Love Zhaoying]

There's an entire discussion thread on the topic..official and sanctioned even.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

21 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

There's an entire discussion thread on the topic..official and sanctioned even.

Link please, I am rather upset about this myself.

[Count Burks]

The entire situation is pretty disgusting. First asking for 600 US$ to buy down a region to then do the same for the rest of your regions without asking for anything. The ones that paid get screwed over without seeing anything for their money.

But educators on the other hand continue to get their 50% reduction in tier. For the educators it is all possible but for the ones that pay large sums of money nothing is possible.

 

[Toothless Draegonne]

If you spent $600 during that buy-down period, you already got your money's worth. Why are you complaining that other people get a little bit of a discount now? You're still paying less. Complain if the regular price drops below GF rate and you're still paying more.

As for educator discounts, what's wrong with having a Student & Teacher rate? You know those regions come with limitations, right?

"Land Barons" I would have thought would be jumping with joy at the chance to charge the same amount of rent for parcels on regions that they're paying less for.

[Qie Niangao]

36 minutes ago, Toothless Draegonne said:

"Land Barons" I would have thought would be jumping with joy at the chance to charge the same amount of rent for parcels on regions that they're paying less for.

It's an opportunity for some of them who were planning to shrink their businesses anyway to squeeze more profit from their dwindling base of customers unwilling or unable to move. Otherwise, there's only a brief interval before they'll need to cut their rates or lose customers to competitors.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced this is very, very bad for the big Estates. Other than customer inertia and setup fees—and what remains of the grandfathered rate differential—this provides a pretty big incentive for tenants to fire the landlord and set up their own private regions. I suspect that's going to keep getting more attractive in future, perhaps as that special grandfathered region advantage shrinks further or disappears. Then, if they start reducing setup fees, we'll know the handwriting is on the wall.

[VeeTach Littlething]

Have any land barons lowered their rents this week?  I doubt it.

[Count Burks]

11 hours ago, Toothless Draegonne said:

If you spent $600 during that buy-down period, you already got your money's worth. Why are you complaining that other people get a little bit of a discount now? You're still paying less. Complain if the regular price drops below GF rate and you're still paying more.

As for educator discounts, what's wrong with having a Student & Teacher rate? You know those regions come with limitations, right?

"Land Barons" I would have thought would be jumping with joy at the chance to charge the same amount of rent for parcels on regions that they're paying less for.

It is very simple why I complain about this. If I pay 600 USD to buy down from 279 to 179 I pay 600 USD$ for a 34.85% reduction in tier I expect that 34.85% will remain respected upon further reductions of the product price especially when it remains respected for other customer types like Educators.

Seems pretty logical if Linden Lab can maintain the reduction in tier for educators they can honor it for the ones who paid hefty sums to buy down their regions.

Other people can get their little bit of a discount as long as Linden Lab honors their deal they made with me.

First coming to ask for 600 US$ to then let the value of that melt away without any compromise it very shady.

Also it is very stupid from a business perspective to let the value of grandfathered regions erode as there is no longer much incentive to keep such a region online. Now people with grandfathered regions will keep these islands online even if they are just breaking even because the region has value. Once that value vanishes it just becomes junk and a burden not worth the time and hassle so then it just gets dumped. 

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Count Burks

[Teresa Firelight]

18 hours ago, Count Burks said:

Also it is very stupid from a business perspective to let the value of grandfathered regions erode as there is no longer much incentive to keep such a region online. Now people with grandfathered regions will keep these islands online even if they are just breaking even because the region has value. Once that value vanishes it just becomes junk and a burden not worth the time and hassle so then it just gets dumped. 

 

 

Actually I am beginning to suspect that LL wants to do away with grandfathered regions and have all regions at the same price.. so they are intentionally gradually eroding the value of the grandfathered regions compared to the regular regions.  When I first bought my grandfathered region, I got $100 USD per month discount, but I had to pay $600 USD up front for that.  It took 6 months to "break even" from the cost of a normal tier. Then tiers when down but grandfathered regions did not go down and suddenly the savings was only $50 USD a month. Now with the latest price reduction, there is only a $30 USD difference in price.

Currently you have to pay an extra $200 USD to keep a grandfathered status if you purchase a grandfathered region from someone else. That means it now takes about 6 and 1/2 months to break even (which is roughly the same as when we originally bought it) so I dont think the transfer fees enter into this.

But I would not be surprised if there is a future $20 a month fee drop to regular fees with no grandfathered decrease, which would make the difference only $10.  I think they are gradually eroding the value of grandfathered regions in hopes of getting rid of them.

Why would they do that? probably because there is a change in management and a change in corporate goals. Remember that back when they did this, they did it to quickly raise capital for some immediate expenses they had. They also had a "sale" on premium annual fees just before they raised those prices... another fundraiser to get working capital. I dont have any inside info on why they needed the capital, but I would guess it had to do with equipment maintenance fees and such. They have since migrated to the cloud, so they probably dont have any need for quickly raising capital to cover big expenses.

I am not at all happy about them downgrading the value of grandfathered regions because those of us with it are mostly their highest paying and longest paying customers. But I can kind of see how it makes sense for their business model to try and phase out grandfathered regions.

[Teresa Firelight]

On 3/6/2023 at 5:28 PM, Love Zhaoying said:

There's an entire discussion thread on the topic..official and sanctioned even.

Yes there is. And 99% of it focuses on the increase of fees to buy/sell lindens. This is a land forum and I think that discussion about land tier is relevant to this forum.

[Sandra Absent]

WOW....THE ENTITLEMENT!

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

Yeah it sounds like they want to get rid of the grandfathered ones altogether, despite the fact tha it's shi**y to the people they offered them to in the first place.  

[Wulfie Reanimator]

The people who bought Grandfathered regions have made their money back and then some, right? I have never interpreted LL's messaging about GF status as some "perpetual discount rate." Hasn't it always been described as a set rate, unlike education pricing? (I feel education/non-profit is a very different thing anyway, and deserve to be treated differently.)

We know LL wants to bring down land prices by moving their revenue to other places (like the Marketplace, and Premium memberships). I don't really understand the downside of giving the grandfathered (or even cheaper) price to everyone. GF-owners dropping the status is not a negative thing, because the cheaper price of land is a bonus to Second Life overall, because more people will have the opportunity to own land in the first place.

If someone (in the future) gains ownership of a GF region right before the non-GF prices become equal, I would see that as unfortunate and hope that LL waives the fee to keep the sim's GF status.

[Love Zhaoying]

"Grandfathered rates" are ALREADY a discount. "Discounting a Discount" ain't a thing like a "regular" discount.

For comparison, if you go RL shopping, you are not allowed many places to "combine discounts".  

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

"Grandfathered rates" are ALREADY a discount. "Discounting a Discount" ain't a thing like a "regular" discount.

For comparison, if you go RL shopping, you are not allowed many places to "combine discounts".  

And, come to think of it, if you have a "grandfathered" region now you're already paying less per month for it than your "grandfather" did.