Will land ever be priced fairly?

[Prokofy Neva]

On 11/2/2023 at 3:59 PM, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

Yeah.

Bit stream of consciousness here so I'm probably off in a few places. My general thought on this though is as follows:

LL possibly did change their main source of revenue, but it's still related to land.

A few years back SL was held together by a small handful of massive land barons renting out land in various forms:
Users buys L$ ---> User pays land baron or buys stuff from User B who then pays land baron ---> Land baron pays LL
 

Now it still has that, but direct premium accounts seem to have grown a LOT:

User gets linden home ---> User pays LL.
User gets mainland plot ---> User pays LL.

These two methods have always been around (well, mainland has, and old linden homes have just over a decade), but since 2019 they appear to be become more and more often the norm rather than the exception. Bellisseria is HUGE - At a glance it seems to be about the same as all the rest of mainland. But it's also more occupied (and often by people like me who ALSO have some mainland).

- So the income stream for LL is now more dispersed, and they have more flexibility to set policy regardless of the whims of "power users". Hopefully setting policy to match a majority of users, but they're free to not do that also.

Belli is not so much a threat to mainland - I suspect it actually helps mainland (do I use my excess tier for a small plot on mainland, or for a linden home - amount depending) - but I suspect it is a threat to estate land. If you go premium, you CAN use that stipend to get an estate parcel - but then you're just wasting your tier. So you also get a Linden Home or Mainland plot, and then start to question why you're renting on an estate unless that estate is really high quality.

 

That noted, for the past decade or so they have also been gaining revenue from marketplace - and SL has become more and more 'shopping focused' in that time as well. And nobody knows just how much they get from that. It's rather indirect too... it's a "gold sink". The "tax" on items forces people to keep having to buy more L$. It's small at the individual level, but it adds up over scale.

 

Now... all the way back to the OP complaint.

I can see one reason for land tier to be "unfair" - it's not in LLs interest for people to scale up too high. Mega land barons have outsized influence. Better to keep users at a smaller scale and gets lots of individuals instead of a few power brokers. But this "scale" is way beyond even owning a couple of regions. That's a concern when you start putting multiple 0s on the end of how many regions you own. Still, making it harder to scale early on just helps to discourage the idea.

Indeed, if you follow this closely and fly around a lot as I do, and ask the Lindens directly -- they sometimes answer factually -- Belli is now likely MORE THAN Mainland under tier by residents, not counting abandoned or Linden land.

There are 3000+ plus Bellisseria sims and more constantly added daily.

Not sure why you are not mentioning islands, which are the chief source of revenue for LL -- there are some 28,000 regions; of these at least 20,000 are islands producing island tier mainly at the current, not grandfathered level.

The tax from the MP can't possibly equal this -- look at "last items bought" and do the math.

It's the jump we're talking about -- 2048, then 4096, then 8192, so that you are forced to tier up or tier down. Land should be at a standard price per meter.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 10/31/2023 at 6:33 PM, BJoyful said:

LL has changed their policy to a fee-based income rather than land fee income stream a couple of years ago.  They will continue to charge fees for land use as they do have to pay AWS to host the land, but they won't need to incorporate the cost of all the current Abandoned Land because someone else will be paying for those costs.  If 200 or 2000 Regions covered in massive skydomes rezzed in a stack from 4096m down to the ground on Mainland just disappear and sell or Abandon Land I will cheer uproariously!! ♥  Let any and all who don't want anything to change but never cease to complain dump all of their Mainland in favour of... what else?? (not really... I'm just imagining what if) and I will be in support morally and possibly financially, of any enterprising idea I like... just because I can and I have that right ♥  There can certainly be guidelines created to prevent misuse, but I know of many places for sale (even a couple of 512's we own on Zindra) which are completely decorated and furnished, set for Sale and used/tested/misused by actual land shoppers or for a 'quickie' and that doesn't bother me at all.  Sure there will be some who manage to hack anything to get something for cheaper or for nothing... but at least some portion of that land will be paid for by a Landowner rather than solely by LL (and accordingly charged to us land Owners as a cost of operating contiguous Abandoned Land).

Change is inevitable and necessary for everything to evolve... or it will cease to exist.  Nothing will ever change unless someone changes it no matter how much complaining is voiced.  This "Reduced Tier Land For Sale" proposal could be accomplished by a private (non LL) Land Group, but I certainly couldn't do it by myself.  It would also be a longer term investment before any significant profit would be realized... but an LL supported (even if just by LL's donation of some tier to said Group) Land Group would provide a much quicker return of investment and profit for all investors, plus another possible reduction of Land Use Fees for all... so we'll see what happens... or doesn't happen and we can all simply Keep Calm and Carry On ♥♥

I don't understand what you mean by "fee-based income" versus "land free income".

The Lindens make the overwhelming percentage of their revenue from monthly island tier. Bellisseria and Mainland together are significantly less than the number of islands.

I'm puzzled by your notion that "someone else" will pay for the abandoned land. Who? It's on a region, which has to be maintained at AWS by LL.

Virtual land is like what is said about boats: a hole in the ocean into which you pour money.

Land is not an investment; it is a cost center. It is a frame around content and experience that is a fixed cost, not revenue.

I think that's the basic lesson to be learned from 20 years of Second Life.

[Teresa Firelight]

I have gotten around the increase in tier when you barely cross a tier boundary by using a premium alt to contribute their 1024 allowance to group-owned land. That covers little "overages" in the tier pricing. 

For example, say you own 8192 sqM and you want to add another 1024 sqM to your collection. You can get an annual premium for $99 USD, which works out to be $8.25 per month. You can pay $39.25 ($31+$8.25) a month, which is a lot cheaper than paying $60.

I think we should be grateful that LL allows for group-owned land -- and they even give us a 10% bonus for using that feature.

To be honest, I don't think LL is being unfair to us with their tier pricing. In fact, they have reduced land fees quite a bit over the past few years. When I first got my private region, it was something like a $1,000 setup fee plus $349 a month tier, and it had a much smaller LI allowance. Now the monthly tier is $209 and the initial setup fee is much lower than it used to be. Tier pricing has come down a LOT and the LI allowance for each tier has gone up a lot.

It seems to me that Land Tier is one area where LL has been bending over backward to make it more affordable for us.

(Just dont get me started on the increased fees for buying/selling $L... that is another story.)

[BJoyful]

15 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I don't understand what you mean by "fee-based income" versus "land free income".

You made a typo. I stated "land fee income" not "land free income" as in LL creating Mainland Continents and selling parcels for a land fee to the highest bidder as a source of income. I don't know exactly when this happened as it was before my consistent time in SL (maybe 2010 with the creation of the 2010 Linden Homes when many Residents sold or Abandoned their Mainland to go live there or just gave up because the creation of Linden Homes and popularity of Estates may have devalued Mainland rapidly and Mainland Residents struggled to at least break even trying to rent or sell devalued Mainland parcels when Residents could have a free house by simply buying a Premium Membership.

LL announced a couple of years ago (2019 or 2020, maybe?)  they were/are changing their income stream from creating and selling Mainland (what I called land fee) as an income source to a fee-based income (increasing the MP commission to 10%, adding a fee for converting L$ to US $ account, charging a fee to us who Buy L$). 

Mainland Continent creation and its sale for profit seems to have ground to a halt with Zindra, Gaeta and maybe somewhere else halted... (still incomplete to this day) and ended when great swathes of Mainland's least desirable/valuable land (interior of continents with no protected infrastructure like Protected Roadways or Protected Coastal Waterways value) was Abandoned in favour of 2010 Linden Homes and the explosion of Estates, and Estate Rentals being cheaper and attractive for their covenants, security options, etc.  So... LL ended up with hectares of empty Abandoned Mainland switching from an income stream with Residents of some variety paying tier fees to pay for its hosting on the Server to it becoming a larger and larger expense that had to be paid for out of LL's profits.  When Estates aren't being paid for they just shut them off and stop hosting them but you can't switch off Mainland parcels that aren't being paid for by a landowner of some variety.  Mainland is contiguous and contiguous is costly if no one want to buy it and pay tier.

LL wasn't about to shut its doors or turn off Mainland just because tier income changed from Mainland Sales to Estate Sales.  Mainland has just kept plugging away, maybe a little ignored, but no drastic action was immediately required and the loyal Mainland owners hung on for dear life because we Mainland Owners know the contiguous land is an actual world where you can see Residents drive by, gather at places of interest, fly overhead in aircraft and you can look at the Map and plan a route to go sightseeing for hours, its just like Earth.  Estates are just 256x256 'islands', isolated from each other... you can't wave to someone driving by in a boat where the water is not actually there, just a fake void.  Estates are like beautiful prisons to me, a lover of geography, maps and navigation.

Second Life has the largest contiguous Mainland of any virtual world in the known universe... THAT is why I'm on Mainland.  Many platforms have had some success selling or giving away estate-like spaces for some kind of fee, but Estate life can be very lonely and isolated as we discovered during the pandemic, knowing others are out there, in their isolated boxes wishing for the possibility of some sort of human contact, trapped and not free to move outside that 256 x 256 unless you rent or own lots more connected Estates.  If you love being alone and changing decor often or building and creating in a lag-free 256 x 256 box then Estates are great and you are the master of your own universe and you can invite friends over at any time... but you can't jump in your car in your own driveway and just go for hours, looking at the changes in your neighbourhood, passing strangers who may be friends you haven't met yet unless you teleport from an estate and rez your car on Mainland to do so. ♥

Edited November 6, 2023 by BJoyful

[BJoyful]

13 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I'm puzzled by your notion that "someone else" will pay for the abandoned land.

If Prokofy buys some Abandoned Land, Prokofy pays a pittance (L$1/m2) and concurrently pays LL tier monthly to cover the hosting... so that Prokofy will be paying for formerly abandoned land and paying tier to keep it online.  Abandoned Land is pure expense for LL because they can't just shut it off if Prokofy decides to Abandon that land again.

Edited November 6, 2023 by BJoyful
clarification

[Chic Aeon]

Land prices (resale that is) are determined by what folks are willing to pay.  Fifteen years or so ago when SL was "very hot" I sold a 512 lot for 20,000 lindens (actually two of them side by side). They had a narrow channel of sailable waterway in front.   

Ten year later I was paying a linden per meter (and not abandoned land). Granted not water bordered.  Land prices HAVE been very low in SL at times and sometimes less than 1 Linden per meter.  And that didn't always sell all that quickly.   

I have been renting for a long while. There are some very good deals out there if you look for them.